Fox Business: Yahoo Activist Investor Calls for New Board of Directors
FOXBusiness
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
New York--Yahoo (YHOO: 26.56, +1.30, +5.14%), the Sunnyvale, Calif. listed Internet company that fought off an unsolicited bid by Microsoft (MSFT: 29.78, -0.10, -0.33%), is seeing activist investor Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital call for investors to vote against the company’s existing board of directors.
In an interview with Liz Claman on the Fox Business Network, Jackson, who, along with other individual investors collectively own 3.3 million shares of Yahoo, said he’s urging investors from now until Yahoo’s board meeting on July 3 to vote against every one of the 10 board members including Chief Executive Jerry Yang. He said investors are “frustrated” over the board’s “lack of oversight” during the past four years. Jackson noted he wants Yang gone.
“The breakdown in talks with Microsoft is the latest example of another misstep by this board of directors," said Jackson. While Jackson isn’t nominating a slate of directors, given the costs associated with doing that, he said he would support activist investor Carl Icahn or any other shareholder that waged a proxy fight against Yahoo.
“I’m always in favor of Yahoo shareholders whoever they are, coming forward with alternatives,” said Jackson. “I think shareholders are best represented by some new blood. Whether it’s Carl Icahn or whether it’s someone else coming forward with some folks, in general yes I think that’s a good thing.” He said he would support Icahn as long as Icahn was pushing for fresh blood at Yahoo.
Jackson, who was instrumental in the ouster of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, is betting shareholders will come out in droves and vote, saying it will likely be the most “participated election” of this year, “People are irate. They are upset," said Jackson.
