Search Results for: \"carl icahn\"

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Keep Your Eye on the Yahoo, WPP Ad Partnership; Ignore Carl Icahn

posted on May 16, 2008

Do you know how illusionists make that cute bunny disappear? They distract your eyes with something else, so you don’t notice what’s going on.

Cue Yahoo “Copperfield” with its attempt to make Carl Icahn disappear by distracting you with the good news about a partnership it just formed with mega-ad agency WPP.

In a statement, the companies said that as part of the deal, WPP advertising agencies would, through its 24/7 Real Media arm, develop a proprietary advertising media trading platform that takes advantage of Yahoo’s Right Media exchange.

In addition, WPP will work with Yahoo to create a WPP marketplace giving its ad agencies a new place to spend their client’s ad budgets.

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Icahn’s Not the Only One: Bartz Selling Yahoo Stock

posted on September 8, 2009

icahnCarl Icahn’s recent Yahoo stock dump didn’t cause too much alarm—although he took a $125M loss, he still retains 4.5% of the company (and his board seats). But now Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz looks like she’s dumping stocks—and investors are none too happy.

As The Guardian reports, when Carol Bartz took the helm, she was given a $1M salary and $5M in stock options, as well as a promise of a $4M bonus if things went well. In two sales during these last nine months, Bartz has already unloaded $2M in Yahoo stock options.

Not exactly a sign of confidence. Yahoo’s general counsel, Mark Callahan, has also sold of a significant portion of his shares—$1.35M in five sales this year, twice as much as last year. Because bad things come in threes, I guess.

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Yahoo’s Yang to Yings – Thar She Blows!

posted on May 16, 2008

By Sean Maguire

Jerry Yang must be thinking “surely this is a bad dream”, as he runs around like Captain Ahab (as best he can since he’s also standing on one leg), shouting out commands as the Great White Whale charges the ship.

Yesterday, Yang completed a rare “three-peat” in a letter to his underlings (yings):

One for the money

“I’d ask all of you to stay focused on the business at hand and what we do best — transforming the experiences of our users, advertisers, publishers and developers, all while enhancing our leadership position in the online marketplace.”

Two for the show

“In the meantime, we should remain focused on doing what we do best — transforming the experiences of our users, advertisers, publishers and developers, all while enhancing our leadership position in the online marketplace.”

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Yahoo: Make Us an Offer (We Won’t Refuse)

posted on July 7, 2008

the young and the profitlessSuddenly, I feel like I work for Soap Digest. But with the latest don’t-miss developments in The Young and the Profitless, we had to get a jump start on Season Two!

Last time, on The Young and the Profitless:

Despite Stacey’s (YHOO) recent marriage to Grant (GOOG; last season), Brad (MSFT) has decided he’s going to win her back, with or without her consent.

Meanwhile, Grant’s and Stacey’s marriage is really one of convenience to provide financial support for Stacey When faced with Brad’s emotional assault, Stacey turns to Tim (Time Warner) for help—but Brad has been trying to get Tim on his side to help woo Stacey once and for all. Who will win Stacey’s heart and search business?

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Yahoo Still Fighting the Good Fight

posted on July 11, 2008

I knew you were wondering, since none of us are sure these days, but Yahoo is still giving it the old college try. Here’s the latest from the Yahoo battlefront.

Although a few of our commentators insist that the Yahoo/Microsoft deal is all but inevitable, Rupert Murdoch disagrees. And I think he might know—after all, his properties, especially News Corp, have been courted by both sides almost since the beginning for support in brokering and/or funding a deal.

Murdoch said at the Allen & Co conference:

There won’t be a deal. There’s bad personal feelings. In six months, (Microsoft) will walk away.

Ouch.

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Google’s AOL Investment a Likely New Strategy for Partnerships

posted on December 21, 2005

Take a look at BusinessWeek’s fascinating summary of the events that led up to the Google/AOL deal.

It’s interesting to note that while billionaire Time Warner investor Carl Icahn is calling the Google deal a bad thing for those looking to see AOL broken-up and sold, he was the one pushing for the deal instead of one with Microsoft.

Microsoft and Time Warner had been discussing a joint venture that would have tethered the companies’ fortunes more deeply. Had that deal gone through, it would have been harder to peel AOL away from its parent. Icahn was pushing Time Warner in the direction of Google, according to a person close to the discussions. By the morning of Dec. 16, Time Warner execs notified their Microsoft counterparts that they were entering exclusive talks with Google.

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Yahoo Calls Microsoft Actions Stupefying; Will Sell for $33

posted on July 17, 2008

I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. Somehow, by using every cliché in the book, I think I just guaranteed that I’ll always have get to be the one covering Microsoft/Yahoo/Google deal news. Well, today we’ll go with mixed sport metaphors. Mixing metaphors is even more fun than just using them!

Okay, so let’s hit one out of the park, shall we? There’s a new letter to Yahoo shareholders today—from Yahoo itself. It’s quite long, and since I’ve been working on synopses today, I’ll go ahead and boil this one down give you just the box score on this one, too. But just because I like you.