July 21st, 2008
Another call for Yahoo-Icahn compromise
Carl Icahn’s push to get a new slate of directors on board at Yahoo took another hit late Sunday when another shareholder stepped up to call for a compromise. According to Reuters, Eric Jackson, manager of hedge fund Ironfire Capital and leader of shareholder group Yahoo Plan B, will announce today that he will push his Yahoo Plan B group to elect a mixed lineup comprised of five Yahoo directors and four nominees from Icahn’s slate. His group is comprised of 15o stockholders, representing 3.2 million shares of Yahoo.
That makes two shareholders that aren’t giving Icahn the full support he might have expected from Wall Street. On Friday, investor Legg Mason, which owns 60.7 million shares, or 4.4 percent of the outstanding shares, said it will vote for Yahoo’s slate of directors. It did encourage the two sides to work out a deal and avoid the proxy fight but said it believed that Yahoo’s board and management acted properly considered Microsoft’s acquisition offer before declining it and has decided to continue to support it.
The same day, Yahoo launched a counter-campaign with a statement on it’s Yahoo.com home page. In it, the company attacked Icahn’s understanding of the tech industry and criticized his track record with tech companies.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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