Yahoo Inc. has named Scott Thompson, president of eBay Inc.’s PayPal division, as its next chief executive officer.

The conflicting company has been without a persistent CEO since early September as it fired Carol Bartz after losing patience with her trials to turn around the company during her two and half years  tenure. Tim Morse, Yahoo’s chief financial officer has been acting as temporary CEO since Carol Bartz’s termination.

Scott Thompson has served as president of PayPal since January 2008 and before that he served as PayPal’s senior vice president & chief technology officer.

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo disclosed that Scott Thompson’s will take on as new CEO on Jan 9 and then Tim Morse will return to his CFO post.

Roy Bostock ,Yahoo Chairman said Thompson’s track record of creating on existing resources “to reignite new innovations and drive growth is actually the formula we require at Yahoo.”

It will be a challenging task for Thompson. The company has been losing its ground in the fast-moving Internet advertising market to Facebook and Google for years. Due to this for past three years, its stock price has not exceeded $20.

Yahoo’s Inc. has been trying to sale of all or part of the company since Carol Bartz’s termination last year. There are may potential buyers in the race which includes China’s Alibaba Group, which may  ask a private equity firms in a joint bid.

Yahoo shares fell 1.7 per cent to $16 in morning trading.