NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc trumpeted a series of new advertising deals on Wednesday in a bid to alleviate shareholder pressure, even as the company continues "engaged" discussions over a deal with Microsoft Corp.
Yahoo President Susan Decker unveiled the new advertising partners ranging from Wal-Mart Stores Inc to CBS Corp as the Internet company faces pressure from billionaire investor Carl Icahn and other shareholders over its failed talks for a $47.5 billion buyout from Microsoft.
She also suggested that some form of deal with Microsoft could still come about. Shares of Yahoo rose more than 3 percent in morning trade.
"There are ongoing, engaged conversations," Decker said at the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York. "There are many ways in which a combination with Microsoft could be very beneficial."
Decker stopped short of saying whether those talks were about a full merger or a partial deal. She said previous talks, which broke down in early May, had failed to address issues beyond price, such as ensuring a deal could close.
"What we're doing now is completely rewiring Yahoo," Decker said, referring to the new ad partnerships and hinting at additional ways to rouse what she said was "the largest latent social network" of visitors and e-mail users on Yahoo sites.
Icahn has launched a proxy battle against Yahoo, accusing its board of driving Microsoft away, ahead of an August 1 shareholder meeting.
He cited details from a shareholder lawsuit released this week that showed Yahoo had arranged a costly severance plan in the event of a takeover that critics say could thwart a deal.WAL-MART'S EYEBALLS
The multiyear Wal-Mart deal makes Yahoo the primary ad sales channel for Walmart.com's display and video advertising. Yahoo will become the exclusive portal to resell the site's display inventory.
The agreement will also give Yahoo a major participant for its new AMP advertising management system, a linchpin of the company's strategy to reach outside its own base of users and increase its position as the "must buy" location for online advertisers.
AMP aims to simplify the process of buying and selling online ads for advertisers, ad agencies, fast-growing ad trading networks and Web site publishers.
Decker said the system, already in the works for months, should launch for its newspaper site partners toward the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter.
In another deal, the digital unit of advertising holding company Havas will work with Yahoo globally on AMP.
A third agreement calls for Yahoo to carry CBS content, like clips from TV shows, as part of a broader plan by the media company to add new outlets for its television programs.
The deal would have Yahoo join the CBS Audience Network, which already includes Google's YouTube, Time Warner Inc's AOL and Microsoft's MSN, as well as sites like Joost, Veoh and Bebo.
Yahoo also said it reached agreements to expand its newspaper advertising consortium by 94 more properties, bringing the total number to 779. Among other things, Yahoo provides the technology to serve graphical display ads on the websites of the newspapers involved.The deal would have Yahoo join the CBS Audience Network, which already includes Google's YouTube, Time Warner Inc's AOL and Microsoft's MSN, as well as sites like Joost, Veoh and Bebo.
Yahoo also said it reached agreements to expand its newspaper advertising consortium by 94 more properties, bringing the total number to 779. Among other things, Yahoo provides the technology to serve graphical display ads on the websites of the newspapers involved.
Yahoo has also been talking to Google about an advertising partnership in web search, although Decker declined to talk about any current negotiations on that front.
"We looked at that alternative," she said. "It did inform how the board responded to some of the past overtures" from Microsoft.
Shares of Yahoo were up 83 cents at $26.98.
(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Phil Berlowitz)
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