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Papers: Yahoo may sell web business after Starboard boardroom shake-up

Last updated: 23:08 28 Apr 2016 AEST, First published: 18:08 28 Apr 2016 AEST

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A shake-up of Yahoo Inc.’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) board will force chief executive Marissa Mayer to work toward a sale of the struggling Web business, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The tech giant has agreed a deal with activist investor Starboard Value LP for it to add four members onto the board.

Starboard chief executive Jeffrey Smith, along with three of his director nominees, will be added, with the other nominee proposals dropped.

Mr. Smith also will join Yahoo’s independent committee in charge of the company’s auction process.

Two of Yahoo’s current directors won’t seek re-election, bringing the board to a total of 11 directors.

In other tech giant news, Ford, owned by General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) and Google, which recently changed the name of its holding company to Alphabet, (NADAQ:GOOGL) are to team up to support driverless cars.

The New York Times said the two will lead a coalition of companies that advocate federal approval of driverless cars in the near future.

The group, which calls itself the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, presented testimony on Wednesday at a hearing on autonomous vehicles held by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Elsewhere, USA Today writes that Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN)  first quarter results will likely see a return to profitability thanks to the march of Prime and its cloud services business.

For the first quarter, analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence expect sales of US$28bn and an adjusted profit of 59 cents per share, up from a loss a year ago. 

Staying with earnings season, the paper also reports that hotel chain Marriott International Inc (NASDAQ:MAR) saw net income rise 9% during the first quarter.

The company fended off a rival to win its multibillion-dollar bid for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide (NYSE:HOT) in the quarter, to create what will be the largest hotel chain in the world.

Away from earnings season, Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) board has voted to create a new class of shares, a "C" class, that will have no voting rights in a bid for CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to retain control of the tech giant.

The company announced a three-for-one stock split to create a new class of non-voting share. With the split, Facebook shareholders will receive two non-voting shares for each single share they hold.

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