Carl Icahn bought up another 6.8 million shares of Yahoo earlier this week, bringing his total holdings to 75.6 million shares (just north of 5 percent). He paid just under $10 a share, or about a third of what he paid last May when he started building the bulk of his position.
Of course, now he controls three seats on Yahoo’s board, including the one he occupies. So he is personally involved in the search for a new CEO to replace Jerry Yang, and he knows the stock will probably react favorably to the announcement of any new leadership. Why not buy now before the news when the stock is hitting rock bottom? He is obviously in the stock for the long haul now.
I wouldn’t read too much into this move other than that Icahn is in too deep with Yahoo to bail out now. If you are committed to a stock, you buy it when it’s cheap.
It doesn’t mean that Yahoo has found a new CEO. If the search was over and Icahn knew who was going to take over, that might be considered insider information and Icahn wouldn’t be able to trade on that knowledge.