Key events involving Yahoo and its performance

Associated Press

Monday, May 20, 2013 | 11:19 a.m.

Yahoo has reached a deal to buy online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion, the latest acquisition under CEO Marissa Mayer. Yahoo is paying mostly cash for Tumblr and expects to complete the deal by the end of the year. Here are key events involving Yahoo Inc. and its performance in recent years:

Nov. 17, 2008: Yahoo Inc. says co-founder Jerry Yang will step down as CEO as soon as a replacement is found. It ends a rocky reign marked by Yang's refusal to sell the Internet company to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, in May 2008. Yahoo's board had been facing pressure to push him out as its stock plunged to its lowest levels since early 2003 and well below Microsoft's last offer price.

Jan. 13, 2009: Yahoo names technology veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive, bringing in a no-nonsense leader known for developing a clear focus.

June 11: Yahoo hires a cost-cutting specialist, Tim Morse, as its new chief financial officer.

July 29: Microsoft and Yahoo announce a 10-year search deal. After the deal is completed months later, Yahoo turns over responsibility for search technology to Microsoft, while Yahoo concentrates on sales of billboard-style advertising on the Web.

Oct. 7, 2010: Yahoo rolls out new tools to get people to the information they seek more quickly, especially when searching about entertainment, sports and major events. The hope is to distinguish itself from its Internet search partner, Microsoft, because Yahoo gets a cut of ad revenue when searches are done on its own site.

Sept. 6, 2011: Yahoo fires Bartz after less than three years on the job. Morse is named interim CEO.

Jan. 4, 2012: Yahoo names Scott Thompson, president of eBay Inc.'s PayPal division, as Yahoo's new CEO, its fourth in less than five years.

Jan. 17: Co-founder Yang leaves the company as he steps down from the board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since its 1995 inception.

Feb. 7: Chairman Roy Bostock and three other longtime board members say they won't seek re-election to give Thompson an enhanced team of independent directors. Many Yahoo shareholders had been clamoring for Bostock to step down since the company balked at Microsoft's 2008 takeover offer.

April 4: Yahoo announces plans to lay off 2,000 employees, or about 14 percent of its workforce. The cuts are part of an overhaul aimed at focusing on what Thompson believes are Yahoo's strengths while also trying to address its weaknesses in the increasingly important mobile computing market.

April 6: Thompson unveils a plan to reorganize the company into three main divisions focused on users, advertisers and technology. Yahoo believes the new structure will improve users' experience with Yahoo, work closely with advertisers in different regions of the globe and strengthen the company's technology group.

April 17: Yahoo reports first-quarter earnings, the first results under Thompson. Revenue grew less than 1 percent, but it's a breakthrough because the company's revenue has been steadily falling for years.

May 3: Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who controls a 5.8 percent stake in the company through his Third Point fund, questions Thompson's qualifications and integrity after exposing a misrepresentation about the executive's education. Yahoo blames an "inadvertent error."

May 13: Thompson is out at Yahoo. Ross Levinsohn, who oversees Yahoo's media and advertising services worldwide, is named interim CEO.

June 18: Yahoo says Michael Barrett, a former colleague of its interim CEO, will run Yahoo's advertising sales team as chief revenue officer.

July 16: Yahoo names longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer as its fifth CEO in as many years.

July 17: On Mayer's first day on the job, Yahoo reports lackluster quarterly results, underscoring the challenges she will face.

July 30: Yahoo announces Levinsohn is leaving the company.

Sept. 18: Yahoo completes a long-awaited, $7.6 billion deal for Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group to buy back half of Yahoo's 40 percent stake. Most of the proceeds will go to its shareholders, but Yahoo still has an extra $1.3 billion to finance acquisitions or hire new talent.

Sept. 25: Software industry veteran Ken Goldman is named chief financial officer, replacing Morse, as Mayer moves swiftly to build her senior management team.

Oct. 22: In the first quarter under Mayer, Yahoo reports third-quarter results that topped analyst estimates. Yahoo's net revenue barely grew at a time when advertisers are spending more money marketing their products and services online. Nevertheless, the numbers were slightly better than analysts projected.

Jan. 28, 2013: Although Yahoo still isn't keeping pace with the overall growth of the Internet ad market, the company says it fared well enough during the fourth quarter to produce its first full-year gain in revenue since 2008. It was a scant increase: just $2.4 million higher than 2011's total of nearly $5 billion.

Feb. 12, 2013: Mayer tells an audience of investors that Yahoo will be better served with just 12 to 15 mobile applications, down from a "scattered" portfolio of as many as 75 different programs in recent years.

Feb. 20: Yahoo unveils a long-awaited makeover of its home page to get people to visit more frequently and linger for longer periods of time. It's the first time Yahoo has redesigned the page in four years. Yahoo says it has developed more sophisticated formulas to determine which topics are most likely to appeal to different people so the news feed can be fine-tuned to cater to different tastes.

March 6: Yahoo discloses that Mayer received a $1.1 million bonus for her first five-and-half months running the Internet company. She was eligible for an annual bonus of up to $2 million. Yahoo adjusted it to reflect that Mayer spent less than half the year as CEO.

March 20: Yahoo says it has bought Silicon Valley startup Jybe so it can bring back five of its former engineers to help the Internet company build better mobile applications.

March 25: Yahoo says it is buying London startup Summly, the maker of a mobile application created by teenage entrepreneur seeking an easier way to read news stories and other content on the smaller screens of smartphones.

April 16: A drop in Yahoo's ad revenue during the first three months of the year overshadows a 36 percent increase in earnings that topped analyst forecasts. Mayer says the company is engaged in a "series of sprints" that will culminate in more robust growth.

April 18: Yahoo releases new mobile apps.

April 25: Yahoo says Chairman Alfred Amoroso will become the eighth director to leave since early 2012. He will leave the board on June 25. Amoroso is giving up the chairmanship immediately. Maynard Webb Jr. will handle the duties on an interim basis. Amoroso, who became chairman 11 months earlier after Thompson left, says he had intended to serve as chairman for only a year.

Monday: Yahoo announces a deal to buy online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Mayer is betting that Tumblr will provide Yahoo with a captivating hook to reel in more traffic and advertisers on smartphones and tablet computers. More than half of Tumblr's users connect through the mobile app and engage in an average of seven sessions per day.