Yahoo Goes Into The Red

New chief executive Carol Bartz says Yahoo is not for sale as the company makes a $303 million loss in the fourth quarter.

2008 wasn’t good to Yahoo, what with fending off a Microsoft takeover, shareholder rebellions, and an aborted alliance with Google. And it hasn’t ended well. As Yahoo revealed its figures, it announced that during the fourth quarter it went into the red, to the tune of $303 million.

However, although new chief executive Carol Bartz was adamant that the company needed to streamline more, and devise better strategies, she was adamant in one pronouncement:

"I didn’t come here to sell the company."

During the quarter Yahoo eliminated 1,600 positions, took a heavy charge on its international operations, and had one-off costs of over $600 million.

But for the year as a whole, the financial picture was much brighter. Although it had to spend $79 million on advisory fees to fend off Microsoft, the company still ended up with $424 million in profits, although that was down from 2007’s figure of $660 million.

Company revenue fell 1% in the fourth quarter, largely due to a slowdown in advertising, although its Internet search figures stabilized. The figures were better than analysts had expected, leading to a rise of four percent in share prices during after-hours trading, finishing at $11.83. Notably, that’s barely a third of the $33 a share Microsoft offered less than 12 months ago.