Yahoo Officially Confirms PayPal President Scott Thomson as New CEO

It's official, Yahoo has announced that it has ended its search for a new CEO. It's been searching for one since September, when it ousted its former CEO Carol Bartz, even as the company has been involved in talks of a sale of the entire company or just its Asian assets.

Yahoo announced that, now former, PayPal President Scott Thompson would take on the role of CEO at the company, starting January 9. Tim Morse, who has been acting as interim CEO will resume his role CFO at Yahoo.

"Scott brings to Yahoo! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo," Roy Bostock, chairman of the Yahoo board, said.

"Yahoo! is an industry icon and I am very excited about the prospect of working with one of the great teams in the online world to deliver Yahoo!’s next era of success," Thompson said.

"Yahoo! has a rich history and a solid foundation to build on, and its continued user engagement is one of the many reasons for my enthusiasm," he added.

Thomson says he will focus on the products that define Yahoo, presumably to see what works and what doesn't, but that won't be at the detriment of the advertising business side.

While Scott will be coming in with the intention of actually leading Yahoo with a long-term strategy, or at least that's the impression from the announcements though, what else could Yahoo have said, he will also be involved in the "strategic review process," i.e. the sale talks.

Even as it appoints a new CEO, Yahoo is still looking to sell its Asian assets, its stake in the Chinese Alibaba and in Yahoo Japan. Those could net it plenty of billions and the other sides certainly want Yahoo to sell, but the question comes to funding and being able to sell them without paying huge taxes in the US.