Yahoo’s earnings rise in third quarter

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo posted a 113-percent rise in third quarter earnings Tuesday, but investors were still disappointed by the struggling web pioneer’s failure to meet its sales forecast.

The web portal, which again has been subject to speculation about a sale in recent days, said its income more than doubled to $396 million from $186 million in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose just two percent to $1.6 billion. Excluding payments to advertising partners, the company had sales of $1.13 billion, just below the $1.2 billion predicted by analysts.

Investors sent the company’s stock down three percent in after-hours trading. But embattled chief executive Carol Bartz insisted that the company was on the right track.

“We’ve made substantial progress this year toward executing our strategies for enhancing profitability and resuming revenue growth,” said Bartz in a statement.

The financial results were released just days after reports that AOL is considering making an offer to buy out Yahoo in conjunction with private equity firms in a deal that would value Yahoo at around $20 billion.

That’s less than half the $45 billion offered by Microsoft for the company in 2008 in a bid that was controversially rejected by Yahoo co-founder and then-CEO Jerry Yang. According to the New York Times Tuesday, News Corp is also weighing participating in a bid for the company.