Yahoo CEO gives birth to twin girls after big announcement

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has followed a major business announcement with some big personal news.

She gave birth to twin girls Thursday, the day after unveiling plans to hatch a new company to control Yahoo's Internet business.

This is the second time that the 40-year-old Mayer has given birth since Yahoo hired her as CEO in July 2012. She and her husband, Zachary Bogue, have a 3-year-old son, Macallister.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to reveal the twins' names or weights. Mayer and the twins are both doing well, according to the spokeswoman.

Mayer on Wednesday announced that Yahoo will spin off its Internet operations into a separate company in 2016 or 2017 if the company can gain all the required approvals. The breakup is an alternate to another tax-dodging plan that Yahoo had been working on throughout this year: spinning off its $32 billion stake in China's Alibaba Group into a new company called Aabaco.

As she did with her son, Mayer plans to only take a "limited" time away from Yahoo's Sunnyvale, California, headquarters. Mayer kept her maternity leave to two weeks in 2012, prompting some parents to criticize her for setting a bad example for other working mothers trying strike a balance between the demands of the their personal lives and their jobs.

Yahoo Inc. offers up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave.

Mayer has a lot of work in front of her. Besides overseeing the complex spinoff of Yahoo's Internet operations, she is also drawing up plans for a cost-cutting overhaul that will shed unprofitable products and possibly lay off hundreds of workers. She has promised to provide details of the reorganization late next month when Yahoo releases its fourth-quarter earnings.

Meanwhile, restless Yahoo shareholders have been questioning whether Mayer will be able to reverse a steady decline in the company's revenue that pre-dated her arrival. Yahoo's ongoing financial funk has intensified speculation that Mayer might not be Yahoo's CEO a year from now, although company Chairman Maynard Webb said Wednesday that Yahoo's board still has faith in her.