July 21st, 2008 by admin | No Comments »
After months of bitter fight for control, Yahoo today announced an agreement with Icahn, who will get a seat on the Yahoo board. The board will be expanded from 9 to 11 members. Under the settlement pact, eight members of Yahoo!’s current board including chief executive Jerry Yang would stand for re-election at the annual meeting to be held on August 1. Icahn, who owns nearly 5 per cent stake in Yahoo!, had threatened to oust the current board following the collapse of the takeover talks between the internet major and Microsoft.
Interestingly, Icahn had been urging for the resignation of Jerry Yang and the current board of directors. Yahoo! and Icahn had exchanged a flurry of letters mainly on the internet major’s failure to strike a deal with Microsoft. However as zdnet is pointing out this move was not completely unexpected given Icahn’s past.
I will not pretend that I do not feel a bit let down though. After talking about shareholder’s rights and all I would have expected Icahn to take a more firm stand. It will be interesting to see how Mr jerry and Mr Icahn wil work together. Let us see if mr icahn can push for a microsoft deal as part of the yahoo board.
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