Investor Carl Icahn Pushes Forward with a Yahoo! Proxy Battle

You might have thought that the entire Microhoo! deal was long over, but that might not be the case. Microsoft withdrew their bid two weekends ago, but we found out only a day later that Yahoo! would be up for more negotiation. What that proved to us was that Yahoo! only had intentions to drive their sales price up, and didn’t really think they were worth the quoted $37 per share.

Here’s where things might get interesting. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has decided to press forward with a proxy fight with the goal to remove Yahoo!’s current board and replace them with people who have some business sense. This wouldn’t affect just half the board, but all 10 members.

Of course the question now arises, would Microsoft even be interested in resuming talks? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seemed rather disinterested in Yahoo! after the needless two-and-a-half month barter-fest. Could he have had enough, and would Yahoo! be interested in pitching a more reasonable offer? We may know as soon as tonight.

Any Yahoo shareholder faces a Thursday deadline for nominating an alternate slate of directors, which could then conceivably press for the company to return to merger negotiations with Microsoft. Those nominees could be elected at the Yahoo’s annual meeting slated for July 3.

Source: MarketWatch