Search Results for: \"carl icahn\"

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Yahoo Responds to Icahn: No You Cahn’t

posted on June 5, 2008

As if things aren’t already nasty enough for Yahoo these days, this week, lawsuits and allegations abound that Yahoo’s spurning of Microsoft’s offer earlier this year was motivated by personal biases. Yahoo has responded to the most vocal (and likely most powerful) of their detractors, Carl Icahn, in a letter by Chairman Roy Bostock.

Icahn, a large shareholder of Yahoo, has already already attempted to file a proxy slate to replace the whole board, although his efforts have been rebuffed thus far.

Yahoo continues to resist Icahn’s hostile advances this week. Bostock begins the letter by stating that the board takes issue with Icahn’s June 4 letter and accusations: “Your letter seriously misrepresents and manipulates the facts regarding the recent events pertaining to Microsoft and Yahoo!” (It’s nice to have a company name with an exclamation point; it makes your points more emphatic without the tackiness of all caps ;) .)

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Yahoo Bares Its Teeth: Using Home Page, Legg Mason to Fight Icahn

posted on July 18, 2008

Yahoo’s letter to shareholders yesterday was just the first step in their latest defense against Carl Icahn’s attempts to elect a proxy board at the shareholder meeting in two weeks. Today, Yahoo and its allies strike two more blows.

First, Yahoo has begun leveraging one of its biggest assests—one of (if not the) most popular home pages on the Internet. Yahoo has put a notice about the pending board election below the fold. TechCrunch spotted this earlier today, with a box on the Yahoo home page below-the-fold reading “Your Yahoo!. Your Vote.” An alternate form of the box, as seen by CNET, reads “We have a couple of exclamation points to make.” Finally, a third iteration quotes Carl Icahn:

yahoo home page quotes icahn

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Icahn, Shareholders Want Yang Out of Yahoo

posted on June 3, 2008

Two strikes against Yahoo chief Jerry Yang: there appears to be a growing movement to take him out of the top position at Yahoo.

Carl Icahn, who received approval to purchase more Yahoo shares last week, already attempted to file a proxy slate to replace the whole board, which would have included ousting Yang. Although his efforts have been rebuffed thus far, Icahn continues to fight the good fight, according to the Wall Street Journal today.

Mr. Icahn . . . said in an interview that he will seek to remove Mr. Yang if his effort is successful. In the next day, Mr. Icahn said, he plans to make a public statement highlighting his concerns about the actions of Mr. Yang and the board.

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Yahoo Says “No” to Carl Icahn‘s Board Demand

posted on May 16, 2008

Carl Icahn is a powerful and extremely rich man. Companies that count him as a shareholder likely quake in their boots anytime he has something to say. However, Yahoo’s board is not impressed with Icahn’s threats to replace the board members with a selection of his own.

In their public reply to Icahn, Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board Roy Bostock pretty much tells him to go take a long walk off a short pier.

A fair-minded review of the factual record leads to one conclusion: that Yahoo!’s ten-member board, comprised of nine independent directors along with Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, remains the best and most qualified group to maximize value for all Yahoo! stockholders.

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Icahn Haz Yahoo! Board

posted on May 15, 2008

By Sean Maguire

Standing strong at number 24 on Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans, with a cool $8.7 Billion to his name, Carl Icahn can haz lots of cheezburgerz! Guess what? He wants more.

Oh, the intrigue; the recent breathtaking game of “Deal or No Deal” between Microsoft and Yahoo. Unless you’ve been rafting down the Bolivian mountains’ Tuichi River for the last three months, you’re well aware of Jerry Yang and Co’s, repeated rejections of Microsoft’s increasingly generous overtures. The last one being a lofty (cough cough) – $33.00/share or $47.5 Billion dollars! This represented a full 70% premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on January 31. With Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer playing the role of Howie Mandel, Yang sent two of his yings to politely tell him “No Deal Stevie…No Deal”!

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Carl Icahn Invests in Mobile Content Provider Motricity

posted on February 28, 2007

Motricity, a mobile content and services company based in Durham, N.C.,  has announced a $50 million round of equity funding from serial investor Carl Icahn.

Being a company local to me, I’m glad to see them growing and getting some working capital. but I’m sure they’re well aware that Icahn is not always an investor that likes the status quo.

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No, Really, You Cahn’t: Icahn & Yahoo Letters, Round 2

posted on June 6, 2008

Things are going from bad to worse between Yahoo and Carl Icahn. In Round 2 of letters this week, Yahoo and Icahn repeat many of the same arguments, but they’re really getting snippy now.

Sigh. I’m getting too tired of the ugliness to try to wade through and pluck out the “good” parts, but here’s the gist of the interchange:

ICAHN: Liar, liar, pants on fire. The employee “retention” plan is a walkout and a poison pill; sell to Microsoft for $34.375/share or I’ll do it myself.

YAHOO: Nuh uh, you’re the liar. Why should we be the ones to come crawling back to them, anyway?

If you want to read the full texts of the letters yourself, don’t say I didn’t warn you. (Oh, and Yahoo’s letter is shorter.)