Yahoo takes its defense against Icahn to investors
NEW YORK — Yahoo began pressing a case to greater shareholders Monday that its board and management deserve a chance to prove they made the as it should be move when they rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft.
The missed opportunity to sell to Microsoft infuriated many Yahoo shareholders, prompting activist investor Carl Icahn to agitate for replacing Yahoo’s nine directors and reviving negotiations with Microsoft. If he gains control of the board, Icahn intends to fire Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.
In response, Yahoo has assembled a 32-page presentation in the place of shareholders to elaborate on the points it has been emphasizing since Microsoft withdrew its bid May 3.
Investors will decide the dust-up in a vote scheduled Aug. 1 at Yahoo’s annual meeting. That leaves another month for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company and Icahn to disparage both other.
And through Yahoo shares sliding back toward $19.18 — their appreciate before Microsoft’s bid — Yahoo’s management is facing even more pressure to close the monetary malaise that triggered the takeover bid in the first point. Yahoo shares fell 67 cents Monday to close at $20.66.
Icahn didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, but he wrote adhering his blog last week that he would share his latest opinions onward Yahoo “soon.”
Yahoo argues that entrusting the company’s fate to Icahn would be foolhardy because his tactics centers on resurrecting a dead deal.
Its breaking point came after Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer couldn’t agree steady a value. Ballmer had orally offered $33 through participate in, but Yang wanted $37 per share — a value that Yahoo’s stock hasn’t reached in parsimoniously 2 ½ years.
Since Microsoft walked away, Yahoo declared it tried to reopen sales negotiations in meetings on May 17 and June 8, only to be told “unequivocally” that the software manufacturer no longer is interested in buying Yahoo in its entirety.
Hoping to dispel any perception that it mishandled the Microsoft negotiations, Yahoo’s shareholder presentation lists the dates of at least eight meetings that its management or other representatives held through Microsoft before the bid was withdrawn.
Yahoo besides wants to excite doubts about the sincerity of Microsoft’s bid, arguing that its unsolicited suitor was “unresponsive and inconsistent” during the rudimentary three months of negotiations.
“The record casts doubt on whether Microsoft was ever committed to a whole company acquisition,” Yahoo asserted in the shareholder donation.
Original thesis: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008026635_msyahoo01.html?syndication=rss
