That Microsoft-Yahoo takeover? It's back on, at least via a proxy fight being organised by long-time corporate raider Carl Icahn, who knows how to make trouble for companies he owns shares in which don't increase the value of those shares enough for his liking.
According to the Wall Street Journal,
Icahn plans to nominate 10 directors to replace Yahoo's board before a deadline Thursday, the person said. Mr. Icahn's nominees will include former Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Frank Biondi, who has worked with Mr. Icahn on other proxy fights.
Jerry Yang annoyed a number of important Yahoo shareholders by insisting that Microsoft should raise its bid for the company - which prompted Steve Ballmer to take his chequebook back to Seattle. Ballmer had previously threatened a proxy bid for the company (that is, to install a board friendly to Microsoft's approaches via the nomination process); in response, Yang called the annual meeting for July 3, meaning (under the company rules) that today - just over a week after Microsoft packed up - was the deadline for nominations to the board at that meeting. That was a strategic move, to give angry shareholders the least possible time to find people who might want to sit on a board that would sell itself to Microsoft. (Assuming Microsoft still wants it. Which I suspect it does, really.)
But now Carl Icahn is calling Jerry Yang's bluff. Better get some popcorn.
.jpg?w=600)
