Yahoo Proposes a Third Ownership Option

• Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Business Analysis, Yahoo

Yahoo investor Eric Jackson has proposed a “third option” for control of the portal, citing fears other shareholders would vote to retain current leadership solely because an alternative slate of directorsproposed by controversial investor Carl Icahn rankled.

“Neither side running for election can guarantee that Microsoft will ever come back to the table with an offer for Yahoo. We must accept that reality and select a board to do the best job in the current situation (even as distasteful as the situation is),” Jackson said in a statement. ’I want Icahn to win outright, but I am putting forward this third option because I fear several large shareholders will worry about the operational abilities of Icahn and his team.”

The alternative proposal would retain some of the board including CEO Jerry Yang but oust chairman Roy Bostock, director Eric Hippeau and the Yahoo compensation committee. “I frankly hold Mr. Bostock more responsible for the break-down in talks with Microsoft. He supposedly has much more experience in such deal-making matters than Yang and I find it puzzling that he would choose not to attend that fateful meeting on May 3rd in Seattle, which led to Microsoft finally pulling the plug on their offer.”

Jackson is best known for lashing out at former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel at the portal’s 2007 annual meeting and organizing a sizable minority vote against his re-election. He claims to represent 146 investors holding 3.2 million shares. [CommsDay]

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