The owner of the 2nd ranked US Internet search engine, Yahoo Inc., has named former General Electric Co. executive Tim Morse as its new chief financial officer. Tim Morse, who currently serves as the CFO of semiconductor company Altera Corp. (ALTR), will succeed Blake Jorgensen as CFO.

Morse will earn a base salary of $500,000, subject to annual review, and a sign-on bonus of $500,000. It is worth mentioning here that CEO Carol Bartz, who took over the helm of the company in January, has been reshuffling management. Jeffrey Lindsay, Bernstein Research analyst said the hiring of Morse hinted that Bartz wanted someone to focus on "no-frills financial management," in order to reduce operating expenses.

Earlier, Bartz moved swiftly to replace executives and cut costs by cutting 675 jobs. Speaking over the reports of his appointment Morse said, "Yahoo is an amazing brand with a unique combination of assets, and I am extremely excited to be joining a finance team with a deep commitment to financial excellence and fiscal discipline."

On the other hand, Bartz stated that she wanted to make the company's management configuration more competent in order to move the company back to the industry's forefront once again. It may be noted that Yahoo has lost considerable online ad market share to Google and Microsoft.

Morse is going to shoulder his new responsibility from June 17 and will become the company's CFO on July 1.