Yahoo investors seek answers at shareholder meeting
Since 2012, Mayer has had mixed results turning around the Sunnyvale tech giant, which has struggled to keep up with Google on search and with competitors like Facebook in mobile advertising.
Mayer’s strategy centered on hiring talented engineers to build or improve its products, with the goal of generating large audiences and attracting advertising dollars.
[...] while that has helped Yahoo generate more than $1.6 billion last year in mobile, video, social and native advertising revenue — areas that Mayer says were virtually nonexistent prior to her tenure — it hasn’t been enough to make up for falling revenue elsewhere in Yahoo’s business.
On Thursday, Mayer spoke to a room of shareholders at the Santa Clara Marriott and assured them that Yahoo is making “great progress” on its strategic review process, which includes exploring a sale of its Internet properties and patents.
Brett Harriss, a research analyst with Gabelli & Co., says Mayer and Yahoo’s management team “have exhausted their credibility to turn the business around.”
Placing more pressure on the company to sell is New York hedge fund Starboard Value, which threatened to wage a proxy battle against Yahoo management and later settled for four seats on the board.