Tampa Tribune – Yahoo is recounting the shareholder vote for its board of directors after discovering that a tabulating firm failed to register the opposition of a major investor.

The revision won’t change the outcome of Friday’s election, which retained Yahoo’s incumbent directors despite shareholder anger about the board’s handling of a now-withdrawn $47.5 billion takeover bid from Microsoft Corp.

However, the change will add a little more punch to the protest against the Yahoo board. The directors re-elected last week had been supported by at least 78 percent of the votes cast, based on the original results.

"It’s important for Yahoo’s board to understand there is still pressure on them," said Eric Jackson, a hedge fund manager who represents a group of stockholders with about 3.2 million Yahoo shares. "I thought Yahoo’s board was kind of let off the hook last week when they didn’t really deserve to be."

Capital Research Global Investors, which owns a 6.2 percent stake in Yahoo, lodged the inquiry Monday that resulted in the election recount. Convinced that its opposition to Yahoo’s board wasn’t reflected in last week’s vote, Capital Research demanded an audit from Broadridge Financial Solutions, the processing firm responsible for casting its ballot.

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New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge Funder Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital will call on Yahoo Inc. to accept a board of directors mixed with members both proposed by the company and from a dissident slate backed by billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Jackson, who heads the grassroots group Yahoo Plan B, wants five members to come from Yahoo and four to be elected from Icahn’s proposed slate of nine.

"It’s become clear over the last two weeks that many shareholders are reluctant to support the entire list of Icahn nominees," Jackson said in a statement expected to be issued today.

Icahn had launched his proxy battle two months ago when he rationalized that Yahoo head Jerry Yang was not looking out for the shareholders when he rejected Microsoft’s $33 a share bid on the company.  

It was then that Icahn proposed his slate of board directors which included himself, Frank Biondi, Robert Shaye and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.  Icahn proceeded to garner the support of many prominent hedge funds and wealthy shareholders, though some have been reluctant to put all their faith in the corporate raider.

Jackson is hoping the two parties can reach an agreement before the showdown happens at Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting on August 1st.  

The Yahoo Plan B group is a Web-based activist group comprised of 150 small Yahoo shareholders who hold about 3.2 million Yahoo shares.  Members of the group vote individually rather than as a group.

Julie Scuderi
Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: julie@hedgeco.net

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