Scott Thompson from PayPal named new Yahoo CEO

Former PayPal president replaces interim CEO at Yahoo

Yahoo has named its new CEO -- the former President of PayPal, Scott Thompson -- early Wednesday morning.

The official change will be effective as of Jan.9.

Many people started suspecting that Thompson was being discussed as the possible new CEO of Yahoo this month. Thompson comes in after the former CEO, Carol Bartz, was fired in September. Since September, the Financial Chief Tim Morse has been acting as interim CEO until a final decision was made.

Bartz was fired from the top Yahoo spot, reportedly over the phone, and was offered a $10 million in severance. 

The Sunnyvale search engine and Internet giant has been dancing around several serious negotiations with it Asian partners for tax deals in the past few months and the addition of the well-known leader of PayPal may be the needed confidence as the company pushes forward in these financial endeavors.

Last month, Yahoo stated that is was discussing a plan to cut its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and a Japanese affiliate in a very complex deal -- valued at roughly $17 billion.

This deal in discussion has become a very likely endevour to revamp business in the competitive Internet environment in the last two years.

In the morning conference call to announce the appointment, Chairman of Yahoo, Roy Bostock, assured shareholders that brining Thompson on board would create no slowdown or delay in the process of dealing with Asian assets and deals. Bostock continues that Thompson is already" caught up on the current processes."

Yahoo has been seen as floundering lately against the strong traction that Google and Bing have gained. But, in October, the company announced a partnership with ABC News to co-run news online content through a partnership -- reportedly that will reach 100 million Americans various electronic devices.

Thompson proved, with his time at PayPal, that he was capable of growing an Internet-based financial service into a global entity that now has more than $4 billion in revenue. Thompson had been with the eBay subsidiary PayPal since 2005 and served as president from 2008.

"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," Bostock, said in a conference call.

Thompson also specified his vision for Yahoo in the conference call by underlining the importance of going back to innovation and the bettering the user experience -- especially since advertisers go where the readers are.

JP Morgan's representative Doug Anmuth expressed that the transition of Thompson from the eBay entitiy, PayPal, to Yahoo is "a material loss." Anmuth said in a statement that this departure "suggests . . . a near-term PayPal spin is unlikely, though we would not rule out it happening over time and John Donahoe running that business.  

This new appointment leaves a hole in the PayPal executive team and so, for the time being, Ebay's CEO John Donahoe will serve as PayPal's interim President.

Early on Wednesday, eBay's stock (NASDAQ:EBAY), was down 3.9% to $30.11. 

Over the past year, eBay has traded in a range of $26.86 to $35.35 and is now at $30.11, 12% above that low. 

Prior to PayPal, Mr. Thompson was Executive Vice President of technology solutions at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization.

The Yahoo stock (NASDAQ: YHOO) opened on Wednesday at $16.12 and quickly dropped more than 2% to $15.87 just moments after the announcements.