Tech: Yahoo attempts a turnaround
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer shook up her executive ranks and laid out a broad new strategy for reviving the troubled Internet company this week, said Jessica Guynn in the Los Angeles Times. Ken Goldman, a veteran Silicon Valley executive with three decades of experience, will become chief financial officer later this month, the latest in a series of high-level hires. At an all-staff meeting, Mayer unveiled a game plan for boosting advertising dollars and generating user growth, pledging to focus more on smartphones and tablets, pursue top-notch engineering talent, and slim down Yahoo’s products to those with the greatest promise.
Mayer has a bit of new cash to help finance her planned revival, said Sam Gustin in Time.com. Last week, she freed Yahoo “from a major albatross around its neck” by closing a years-in-the-making, $7.6 billion deal to sell half of Yahoo’s stake in China’s Alibaba Group. After taxes, Yahoo plans to return about $3 billion to its shareholders, leaving around $1.3 billion that Mayer can use to make strategic acquisitions. The Alibaba deal is “an impressive first coup only two months into her tenure,” but Wall Street “will be watching closely to see if she can deliver more.”
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Airlines: Delays irk passengers on American
A labor dispute between pilots and American Airlines is wreaking havoc on passengers, said Susan Carey in The Wall Street Journal. Between 3 and 5 percent of flights are being canceled each day, and just half of the airline’s flights are arriving on time. The delays and cancellations stem from a dramatic increase in pilots calling in sick or filing maintenance complaints, sometimes on items as minor as frayed seat belts. On Sept. 4, a federal judge allowed American, which filed for Chapter 11 last year, to void its pilots’ contract and impose wage and benefit cuts.
Music: EMI-Universal merger creates mega-label
Universal Music Group has been given the green light for its $1.9 billion takeover of EMI Music, said Ben Sisario in The New York Times. Regulators in Europe and the U.S. approved the merger last week, though Universal will be required to sell a third of EMI’s assets. The deal puts the vast majority of the world’s commercially released music into the hands of just three giants: Universal, Sony, and Warner. Universal will control nearly 40 percent of the market, leading to concerns that it will have so much power “that it could dictate terms to new digital services,” like Spotify and Grooveshark.
Retail: Walmart’s passage to India
Walmart could open its first stores in India in the next 12 to 18 months, said Erika Kinetz in the Associated Press, following a controversial decision by the Indian government to open the country’s huge retail market to foreign companies. The decision is expected to revolutionize the country’s retail landscape. Advocates say Walmart and other big retailers will modernize the country’s supply chains, reduce waste, and bring down spiraling food prices. But critics contend that millions of mom-and-pop shops will be decimated.
Housing: Home prices rise again
In another sign of the housing market’s recovery, home prices rose nationally by 1.6 percent in July compared with the previous month, said Anjli Raval in the Financial Times. It was the third straight month that prices have improved in all 20 major U.S. markets tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller housing index. For the first seven months of this year, home prices notched gains of 5.9 percent, “significantly higher than a 0.4 percent gain in 2011 and 2.1 percent the year before.”
