Billionaire investor Carl Icahn plans to overthrow Yahoo's entire board aiming to push it back into takeover talks with Microsoft, according to media reports Thursday.
Icahn, who amassed about 50 million Yahoo shares this month, will nominate ten new directors to replace Yahoo's current board before the nominations deadline on Thursday.
Icahn is moving ahead with the proxy fight in hopes of pushing Yahoo to restart talks to sell itself to Microsoft. Yet Microsoft has given no indication that it would be willing to restart talks.
As part of his proxy contest, Icahn is taking direct aim at Jerry Yang, Yahoo's chief executive and co-founder, who is revered inside the company and has the support of many of its employees.
Some analysts question whether ousting Yang would destabilize Yahoo if it were not sold and had to remain independent.
Big Yahoo investors have publicly chastised the company for failing to seal a buyout deal with Microsoft, which abruptly ended talks earlier this month after balking at Yahoo's 37 U.S. dollar per share asking price.
Microsoft had raised its initial bid to 33 U.S. dollars a share when Yang and his co-founder, David Filo, met with Ballmer and other Microsoft executives at the Seattle airport early this month. The Yahoo founders said their board had authorized an acquisition at 37 U.S. dollars a share.
After that meeting, Ballmer made public a letter to Yang withdrawing the offer and expressing disappointment that Yahoo did not move toward accepting it.
On May 3, Microsoft announced it was withdrawing its offer for Yahoo.
Observers have predicted that Microsoft could withdraw its bid as a bargaining tactic, in hopes that Yahoo's stock would plunge enough that its management team would finally agree to do a deal on Microsoft's terms.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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