Meta holds steady as analysts assess COO Sandberg's departure
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Facebook parents company Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) saw its shares hold steady Thursday as Wall Street analysts assessed Sheryl Sandberg stepping down from her chief operating officer post at the social-networking giant. 
Sandberg announced her departure after 14 years at Meta/Facebook (FB) late Wednesday in a post on her own Facebook (FB) page. Sandberg said that she and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will spend the next few months transitioning her direct reports and she will leave the company on a day-to-day basis in the fall. However, Sandberg will remain on Meta's (FB) board of directors.
Sandberg will be replaced as COO by Meta's (FB) Chief Growth Officer, Javier Olivan. In addition to leading areas like the company's infrastructure, analytics and growth teams, Olivan will also have responsibility for Meta's (FB) integrated ads and business products. Citi analyst Ronald Josey said in a research note that the move hints that Facebook is "working to more closely align its product and business organizations with each other."
Josey, who has a buy rating and $300-a-share price target on Meta's (FB) shares, said Olivan's appointment as COO suggests the company "can improve decision making and time to market as it invests in its new content discovery engine," as well as its advertising tech stack of products.
"We believe Mr. Olivan's focus is likely to be more internal and operations focused across Meta," Josey said, who noted that Sandberg took on a "more external facing" COO role at the company.
At Mizuho Securities, analyst James Lee said he believes Sandberg's "vision" in digital advertising, and experience in guiding Facebook (FB) through transitions such as mobile, video and stories, "will be difficult to replace."
However, Lee said that "the depth of Meta's bench should provide a smooth transition" and its "established infrastructure and technology should enable Meta to execute against the current transition" to products such as Instagram Reels and the Metaverse.
While Olivan takes over Meta's (FB) integrated ad operations, Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion took a critical view of that industry on Thursday. Champion said that Meta (FB) is doing "slightly better" of late in the ad tech business due to the sheer size of its overall business, but he downgraded Snap (SNAP) and Pinterest (PINS) due to ad-spending patterns starting to "normalize" after two years of strong gains in the sector.