Wall Street wants more as Yahoo review ends

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) - As Yahoo Inc approaches the end of a 100-day strategic review, financial analysts want drastic action or even a sale of the company, although many are bracing for business as usual.

Chief Executive Jerry Yang raised hopes that major change might be in store, telling investors shortly after he took the helm of the Internet media company in July that nothing was a "sacred cow."

Since then Yahoo has embarked on a series of modest acquisitions to enhance key businesses such as advertising and collaboration software, while shuttering marginal services and further reorganizing management of its central ad sales force.

But nothing so far resembles the radical surgery many financial analysts argue is indispensable.

Some critics say Yahoo should exit the Web search business and partner with market leader Google Inc.

Barring that, they say Yahoo should sell itself to a deep- pocketed partner such as eBay Inc, Microsoft Corp, News Corp or AT&T Inc to create a new Internet behemoth to compete with far faster growing Google.

"There is only one type of Yahoo shareholder right now: One willing to overlook short-term performance with the belief that Yahoo is worth more to an acquirer," RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan said in a telephone interview.

So when Yahoo reports third-quarter results next Tuesday, investors are likely to look past the numbers to see if Yang has made any hard decisions during the last 100 days.