May 13, 2008
Update: Icahn mulling Yahoo proxy fight
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn wants Yahoo to re-establish talks with Microsoft and is willing to wage a proxy fight to force the company back to the negotiating table
Recommend ThisBillionaire investor Carl Icahn is reportedly mulling a proxy fight against Yahoo's current board members in order to pressure the company to re-establish merger negotiations with Microsoft.
Icahn has bought as many as 50 million Yahoo shares since Microsoft walked away from the deal, according to reports Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal and on CNBC, which both quoted anonymous sources familiar with the situation.
[ For the complete saga of Microsoft's unsuccessful bid to take over Yahoo, check out InfoWorld's special report ]
However, Microsoft hasn't indicated to Icahn that it would return to the negotiating table, and Icahn hasn't decided whether he will go through with the proxy fight, the reports said.
Yahoo investors have until Thursday to nominate candidates to the board, whose 10 incumbent directors are all up for re-election this year when Yahoo holds its shareholders' meeting in July. Separately from Icahn's plans, other large investors are considering getting into the fray, the Journal reported.
Icahn did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment.
The news was first reported by CNBC in the mid-afternoon, helping to give a lift to Yahoo's stock, which closed up 5 percent to $26.56 on the Nasdaq.
Microsoft announced its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo on Feb. 1 but walked away from the deal three months later, on May 3, saying the companies couldn't agree on a price. Microsoft's last offer was for $33 per share, or about $5 billion more than its original offer, but Yahoo wanted $37 per share.
Since then, various big Yahoo shareholders have expressed their displeasure with Yahoo's board and management for, in their view, not negotiating in good faith with Microsoft and causing the talks to collapse. Yahoo formally rejected Microsoft's original offer on Feb. 11, saying it undervalued the company.
On Monday, May 5, the first day of trading after Microsoft's offer withdrawal, Yahoo's stock lost significant value, closing down 15 percent at $24.37, after dropping as low as $22.97 during the day.
Last week, Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang and other top Yahoo executives tried to shift the blame to Microsoft, alleging that the $33-per-share offer was never put in writing and that Microsoft unexpectedly walked away at a time when Yahoo was still open to negotiating.
At the same time, Microsoft's top brass, including Chairman Bill Gates, have repeatedly said that Microsoft has closed the book on its attempts to buy Yahoo and that it is moving on to other options, namely growing its Internet business "organically," meaning via internal efforts and not big acquisitions.
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