CEO says aiming to maximize value of Yahoo assets

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc's latest quarter results show the company is "on the right track" and management is focused on realizing the fullest value for the company, Chief Executive Jerry Yang declared on Tuesday.

"We are totally committed to maximizing the value of this asset," Yang told investors on a conference call to discuss first-quarter financial results.

On the same call, President Susan Decker said it was "premature" to say whether Yahoo would reach a deal to turn over some part of the company's Web search advertising business to rival-turned-Microsoft-counterweight Google Inc.

"It's premature to speculate on what options we may ultimately pursue or whether some form of arrangement might result," Decker said, referring to the test the company had announced two weeks ago of a Google Web search ad partnership.

She emphasized that Yahoo aims to remain a significant player in the Web search market while also wringing the most it can in the near term over the revenue it generates from ads sold alongside its Web search services.

Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said, as previously predicted in January, that the company had seen weakness in financial services, travel and retail advertising sales related to the U.S. economic weakness during the first quarter.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard, Anupreeta Das and Daisuke Wakabayashi in San Francisco)