Yahoo has confirmed that Jerry Yang will be stepping down as soon as the board can find a new CEO. Yahoo said the executive search has started. Yang, who botched a sale to Microsoft, saw his backup ad deal with Google trumped by the Justice Department and couldn’t put anything resembling a viable strategy together, is supposed to return to his role as so-called Chief Yahoo once his replacement is found. He will also stay on the board.

Yahoo said chairman Roy Bostock, the board's independent directors, who would include Carl Icahn and his boys, and Yang are "assessing potential candidates and determining finalists for consideration."

The company has hired headhunter Heidrick & Struggles and are supposedly looking at both internal and external candidates. It is unlikely president Sue Decker will get the job. Too closely associated with Yang.

However, it's unclear how many candidates there can be since apparently none could be found to replace Terry Semel last June when he left and forced Yang into a position he was ill-equipped for.

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story before Yahoo put out a statement, offers News Corp COO Peter Chemin, ex-AOL head Jon Miller, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman, ex-Yahoo COO Dan Rosenweig and ex-Microsoft exec Kevin Johnson.

The move of course will raise Wall Street hopes that Microsoft can be enticed to make another run at the operation - at least its search end - now that a personal irritant is being removed.

Yahoo shares closed today at $10.63, which works out to a market cap of $14.7 billion. It could have had at least $31 from Microsoft.

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