Investor Carl Icahn Pushes Forward with a Yahoo! Proxy Battle

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

You might have thought that the entire Microhoo! deal was long over, but that might not be the case. Microsoft withdrew their bid two weekends ago, but we found out only a day later that Yahoo! would be up for more negotiation. What that proved to us was that Yahoo! only had intentions to drive their sales price up, and didn't really think they were worth the quoted $37 per share.

Here's where things might get interesting. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has decided to press forward with a proxy fight with the goal to remove Yahoo!'s current board and replace them with people who have some business sense. This wouldn't affect just half the board, but all 10 members.

Of course the question now arises, would Microsoft even be interested in resuming talks? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seemed rather disinterested in Yahoo! after the needless two-and-a-half month barter-fest. Could he have had enough, and would Yahoo! be interested in pitching a more reasonable offer? We may know as soon as tonight.

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Any Yahoo shareholder faces a Thursday deadline for nominating an alternate slate of directors, which could then conceivably press for the company to return to merger negotiations with Microsoft. Those nominees could be elected at the Yahoo's annual meeting slated for July 3.

Source: MarketWatch
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Thanks for finding this link Bill.

 

[b1lk1]

I believe Microsoft will return to the table now once a rational business minded board is in power. Jerry Yang really dropped the ball, but he still stands to walk away a very very rich man so it's hard to even say he loses on any front.

 

[madmat]

Personally I don't believe that any company should be forced to sell out by some arsehole buying enough shares to leverage things how he wishes. So what if Yahoo is in a slump, the whole country is in a recession, everyone is hurting. Before the recession hit Yahoo was as solid as any other .com and I'm sure that if they were left the hell alone that they'd weather things just fine but no, someone has a bug up their ass about getting what they want.

 

[b1lk1]

Yahoo is a publicly traded company. They have to answer to stockholders who are rightfully upset that they were screwed out of a chance to make some good coin by a CEO that is rich no matter what happens. The stockholders very much have the right to do this and SHOULD do this since they were given a very good and fair offer by Microsoft.

 

[madmat]

I still feel that hostile takeovers are BS pure and simple and should be outlawed. I don't see this ending well for Yahoo as an entity. If you look at any other hostile takeover it ends up with the bought company cutting jobs, overhead and 9 times out of 10 the smaller company ends up being absorbed and diluted into nothing. I could understand if the company was in trouble, facing chapter 7 or 11 and in danger of going belly up. In that case they need help no matter what just to keep their losses from being passed on to the taxpayers but to FORCE the shareholders to pick a new board just so that you can get your agenda past it is bullshit.

If the yahoo shareholders were as upset as you claim it wouldn't take some asshole new yorker to force them to pick a new board, they'd be calling for heads on pikes already. Funny how that WAS NOT the case isn't it.

 

[b1lk1]

And then the stockholders can hold Jerry Yang personally responsible for this since it sure looks like Yahoo could be chopped up and sold off causing job losses and such. He had a damn good and fair offer on the table and it was in the stockholders best interest to pursue it. Now that that offer is gone, it will not be repeated and it sure looks that it will be much worse for Yahoo instead of the decent fate they had with the previous offer.

You are putting the blame on their current position on the stockholders when it should be on their glorious CEO that got greedy and caused this to happen. Besides that, it takes someone like Icahn to get the ball rolling since he has a significant hold of the company and a simple stockholder cannot get this started. If I was a stockholder I would have sold it all anyways since it is obvios that Jerry Yang only cares about himself.

 

[madmat]

You seem to think he was acting solely alone... everything I've read so far shows that he was going by the consensus of the board of directors.

And how do you think that yahoo will fare differently if they get bought out this time? Bought and plundered is bought and plundered period.

 

[b1lk1]

Believe me, I am on your side. This is going to end ugly for Yahoo it seems. If Icahn gets any form of control it will be chopped up for the best profits for his interests. All I am saying is that as CEO he should have been paying attention to possible scenarios like this and he could have prevented the likely dismemberment. They had a good offer, noone can deny that. It is just sad it is coming to this. I also agree that hostile takeovers always end badly for everyone except the person initiating them. The rich get richer, yay....

 

[madmat]

What I want to know is how in the world did the SEC approve of MS buying yahoo? MS is a monopoly pure and simple and they want yahoo so they can increase their stranglehold into the venue where they're number two. Personally I think that whomever green lighted that decision should be investigated to see just how much payola MS sent their way.

 

[Rob Williams]

I am not sure how it would become much of a monopoly, since Microsoft already owns countless properties as is, most of which already compete with Yahoo!'s offerings. So from what I can tell, they'd just be getting more traffic for services they already offer. The acquisition sure wouldn't do much to help their search business.

During April, 92.68% of our search engine traffic came from Google, 5.35% from Yahoo! and a total of 1.00% from Live and MSN combined. Google sure won't have much to worry about here.

 

[Kougar]

Microsoft already has so much clout... will yahoo even make a difference?

And SEC would probably approve it because neither Yahell or M$ actually manage to hold a candle compared to Google... they might hold a flashlight if they merged though, but still Google wouldn't need to begin sweating just yet.

 

[b1lk1]

They are back to the table. Microsoft is giving Yahoo an out to do a deal before Icahn can get his battle machine up and running too. Microsoft has offered to either purchase some of Yahoo or to join forces somehow without actually buying them out. The plot thickens.........

http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2008/05/19/daily10.html

This is BAD news for Icahn. Almost a guarantee that Yahoo will bite to make him eat his own feces.

 

[madmat]

Sweet! I love it when rich (I'll use my money to make things go the way I think they should) bastards end up looking like a dumbass.

 

[b1lk1]

He won't look like a dumbass, but he is getting knee-capped by Microsoft for sure. I have to agree that it is nice when people like that get the two fisted finger treatment.