Yahoo Elects Largely New Board But Leaves Out CEO

But it left out interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, 48, who was neither nominated for a board seat nor elected as the Sunnyvale, Calif., website's third CEO since September.

Looking ahead, I'm enthusiastic about what we can achieve, the former executive with News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and other media companies told shareholders in Santa Clara, Calif.

Levinsohn as well didn't provide specific details about how the troubled media company will seek to unlock the value of its international investments in China's Alibaba Group (Pink: ALBCF) and its minority share in Yahoo Japan (Tokyo: 4689).

Together, analysts have said they could be valued as much as $40 billion, an incentive for Third Point, a New York-based hedge fund headed by Daniel Loeb, to start acquiring Yahoo shares last September, after CEO Carol Bartz, 64, was fired.

Loeb, 50 and two associates, Michael Wolf, 51, CEO of Activate Strategy and former president of Viacom's (Nasdaq: VIA) MTV Networks; and Harry Wilson, 40, a restructuring expert who narrowly lost the race for New York State Comptroller inn 2010 on the Republican line, were elected by shareholders for the first time.

In May, they reached a deal with Yahoo to desist from a proxy battle after CEO Scott Thompson, 51, quit after four months when they discovered he had embellished his resume adding non-existent college degrees.

The only current Yahoo directors in office more than are Brad Smith, 48, CEO of Intuit (Nasdaq: INTU) and David Kenny, 50, CEO of The Weather Channel Cos., who had president of Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM) until January.

Under former Chairman Roy Bostock, 71, Yahoo hired Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Allen & Co., to provide advice, including possible sales of its international assets as well as new alliances.

Earlier this week, market researcher comScore (Nasdaq: SCOR) said Yahoo's share of the search market had fallen to only 13 percent from 15.9 percent a year ago, although Bing, the unit of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), which handles a technology partnership with Yahoo, saw a share gain of 1.2 percent, to 15.6 percent.

Yahoo's continued slide led to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the No. 1 search engine reaching a record high 66.8 percent share, compared with 65.6 percent a year ago.

Some matters have been put right, Levinsohn told investors.

Yahoo and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site, threw out their patent-infringement counter-lawsuits in two separate federal courts in California. Unlike 2004, when Google went public and paid Yahoo $230 million during its initial public offering, Facebook didn't pay anything to Yahoo.

The company also announced a new partnership with ABC News, a unit of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) as well as another with Spotify, the private online music service.

But a handful of shareholders complained during the annual meeting that progress was too slow.

Levinsohn didn't counter them except to say he hoped new leadership would revive Yahoo fortunes. Secod-quarter earnings are due to be announced next Tuesday.

Yahoo shares dipped 6 cents to $15.74 in late Thursday trading. They're down 2.4 percent this year but up more than 22 percent since CEO Bartz was fired last September.