Yahoo! shares set to climb as co-founder Yang quits

Yahoo! shares look set to rise when Wall Street opens today following the resignation of co-founder Jerry Yang.

The shares jumped more than 4% after trading closed yesterday, according to the Wall Street Journal, as Yang cut all leadership ties, resigning from the board of directors and all positions within the tech company, leaving CEO Scott Thompson free to carry out asset sales.

When Yang was CEO, a position he served from June 2007 to January 2009, he rejected an acquisition bid from Microsoft for $47.5bn.

Today the company is valued at $19.1bn following a few lacklustre years where Google and social networking sites such as Facebook have become the stockmarket darlings of the technology sector.

More recently, it has also been reported Yang played a part in blocking the sale of Asian assets worth more than $10bn.

In a statement, Yang said: "My time at Yahoo, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life.

"However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo."

Yang, who helped create the website in 1995 alongside David Filo, still owns 46.6m shares, or 3.8% of the company's outstanding stock, as at 25 November, according to Bloomberg.