Yahoo! departures rattling confidence

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 20 (UPI) -- An exodus of top-level managers from California search engine giant Yahoo! Inc. has Wall Street investors rattled, analysts said.

The pace of departures has risen since Yahoo! turned down an unsolicited bid from Microsoft Corp. and announced an advertising partnership with Google, The New York Times reported Friday.

Three senior executives, Qi Lu, Brad Garlinghouse, and Vish Makhijani have said they are leaving Yahoo!, sources inside the company said.

"We have a deep and talented management team across all areas of the company," Yahoo! said in a statement, which did not confirm any specific departures.

Attrition is "to be expected in the Internet industry," the statement said.

But analysts said the departures could leave Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang and President Susan Decker isolated.

"One of the reasons that Jerry was selected to be the CEO. is because he could get people excited about working for Yahoo! again. Now people are taking a step back," Scott Kessler, an equity analyst with Standard & Poor's told the Times.

"The senior managers have clearly lost confidence in the strategy and have lost confidence in Sue and Jerry, and that's not a good thing," said Ross Sandler, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.