Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc., the Internet company that rebuffed a takeover attempt from Microsoft Corp. this year, hired consulting firm Bain & Co. to help review its expenses and find ways to boost efficiency.

``Yahoo has been exploring ways to streamline our processes and bring new agility and efficiency to how we work as an organization,'' spokesman Brad Williams said today in a statement. It would be premature to speculate on whether Yahoo will cut jobs, he said.

Yahoo, which gets about 90 percent of its sales from online advertising, is trying to boost profit as customers tighten their budgets. The market for visual ads, such as Web-site banners, will grow a slower-than-anticipated 12 percent this year, Magna Global said in July. The media research firm earlier predicted growth of 17 percent.

``Yahoo really needs to downsize its staff,'' Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said in an interview from New York. ``At some point, they're going to be forced to have to take a few thousand staff out.''

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, gained 22 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $19.15 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have dropped 18 percent this year.

Automated System

Advertisers are shifting away from buying spots directly from sales representatives for some of Yahoo's most prominent sites, such as its home page and financial services, Lindsay said. Instead, they're relying on automated networks that put ads on a wider array of sites across the Web.

That change reduces the need for sales personnel, said Lindsay, who expects Yahoo shares to perform in line with the broader market. The company probably has as many as 4,000 direct ad sales representatives, he said.

``We all know and experience parts of Yahoo where we can do better and be more agile in a competitive marketplace,'' Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang said yesterday in a memo to employees disclosing the Bain contract. ``Yahoo can benefit greatly from more discipline among all departments and functions, across the company.''

U.S. advertising spending, including online spots, fell 3.7 percent last quarter, the most in seven years, New York-based TNS Media Intelligence said today. Spending rose 8 percent on Internet display ads, the research firm said.

Yahoo unveiled a new system today that reduces the steps it takes to for advertisers to place display ads.

The company, which rejected acquisition offers of as much as $47.5 billion from Microsoft earlier this year, announced plans in January to fire 1,000 workers. The company had 14,300 employees at the end of last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Crayton Harrison in Dallas at tharrison5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 24, 2008 16:10 EDT