Yahoo founder Jerry Yang may have dodged a bullet by settling with angry investor Carl Icahn, giving him aboard seat and agreeing to open up two more. That victory was secured in part by talking one of Yahoo’s biggest investors, Legg Mason’s Bill Miller, into backing him. But that doesn’t mean Friday’s shareholder meeting will be smooth sailing.
Yang still needs to win over Yahoo’s biggest shareholder, the Capital Group, which owns 16 percent of Yahoo’s shares through two funds: Capital World Investors (9.85 percent) and Capital Research Global Investors (6.53 percent). Gordon Crawford, who runs Capital Research, is still unhappy with Yahoo’s direction and future prospects. And he might vote against some directors on Yahoo’s board, including Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock, to signal his ongoing displeasure. (Crawford does not control the shares owned by Capital World Investors, but it’s not a stretch to think that all of the Capital Group shares would be voted as a block).
It would be largely a symbolic move at this point, unless individual shareholders join him in a mass revolt. But Crawford can use his threat of voting against Yang and Bostock to negotiate some of his own conditions. What those would be is not clear (anything to get the stock price up). Maybe a change at the top would satisfy him.
Regardless of what happens at the shareholder meeting, Yahoo’s largest investors (Crawford, Mason, Icahn, John Paulson) will be in a better position to force a sale or other action. If they could just agree what that action should be.
The Yahoo deal is over. Ba11mer made an announcement that MS is sinking the share money into Live.
http://tinyurl.com/YahooDealIsOver
There is definitely no getting bored with Yahoo!
Here is a jogtheweb guided tour about Carl Icahn for those who didn’t see it last time:
http://www.jogtheweb.com/reade.....rackId=166
Yahoo was only a tactic for its search assets. Ballmers best shot at bringing down Google. A sale is pending.
Yahoo will probably never be taken over unless the shareholders decide on a plan for an auction or whatnot. http://blabtech.blogspot.com
best tactic for ms strategy to bring down google. a sale is pending. yahoos boat does not float.
If MS was smart they would buy Cuil right now for 100M. Like today. Cuil got some very bad initial reviews and they could probably force a quick exit now.
I got some info that AOL may be involved. If anybody can confirm or deny email me.
http://tinyurl.com/ARRINGTONHASETHICALISSUES
dude if you hate TechCrunch so much please stop spamming the comment field…
I’m getting sick of seeing your BS in every single thread. Seems like jealously to me.
And nice copy of their site too. Classy.
ALL BLOGGERS HAVE ETHICAL ISSUES
Still trying to get Microsoft a good deal on an acquisition? STFU you TechCrunch hack.
Wang should go. The problems with Yahoo are management related. Yahoo lacks vision. They have all these good products but seem content to sit back and be happy with there 20% market share. Where is the vision for tomorrow? All the news is about google and microsoft, not what Yahoo can do for the users. Screw the board members, what matters is the users. All Wang and Becker do is hide in their offices while all this turmoil is going on. This is the time when a leader needs to get up and start selling a vision. They need to quit squabbling of over crap and get back to what matters. The USER who doesn’t give a flying you know what about who owns the company.
Am I the only one who is completely ignoring these Yahoo stories now, like I have been apple stories for 2 years now?
how about those idiots leave Yahoo alone. If the founder does not want to sell his company he shouldn’t have too. I get tired of hearing people like icahn trying to bully the company around and insulting the founder and board when he doesn’t get his way. He needs to be bitch slap.