After her two predecessors failed in recent years to counter Google’s conquest of Yahoo!’s once-dominant position in Internet search, or to win over investors, new CEO Bartz brings strong software-engineering and management skills to the job. At her previous post atop Autodesk, she remade the business, sharply boosting margins, earnings and revenues and increasing the share price nearly tenfold.
Autodesk shares are trading higher this morning after UBS analyst Heather Bellini upped her rating on the design software company to Neutral from Sell, increasing her price target to $16 from $8.
Bellini said the company analyst meeting on Thursday could prove to be a catalyst for the stock. “We expect management to highlight that while sales have yet to stabilize they are declining at a decelerating rate.”
When I talked the other day with Bill Coleman, CEO of Cassatt and a former colleague of new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at Sun Microsystems, he said he was initially surprised she would take on such a demanding job. After all, she stepped back from being CEO of Autodesk to be executive chairman, seeming to head toward relative retirement.
Autodesk this morning joined the parade of misery, warning that Q4 results would be short of expectations, and unveiling a restructuring plan that will result in the loss of 750 jobs. CEO Carl Bass said in a statement that “global economic conditions continue to impact our end-user demand.”
Yahoo is to name Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz to the top post, so now comes the time to digest what it means. TechCrunch noted the Internet company’s falling stock price since the announcement, while AllThingsD points out that Ms. Bartz, while a tech veteran, doesn’t have a media background. Time will tell how she does at Yahoo, but some of the things she’s likely to face there are ones she also dealt with at Autodesk, which tapped her for the leadership position nearly 17 years ago.
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