Yahoo! bosses under renewed pressure
August 8, 2008
As opposition to the bosses at the internet firm Yahoo! has been discovered to be greater than first thought, the pressure has increased once again for the firm. The opposition was revealed at the recent AGM.
Shareholder voted had to be revised after it was found that technical glitches had stopped some votes being counted.
The revised votes show that 33.7% voted against the re-election of chief executive Jerry Yang. This was far higher than the 14.6% figure that was originally published.
Yahoo! had recently rejected Microsoft’s $47.5bn offer, they said the offer undervalued the firms’ assets and future business prospects.
Certain investors believe Yahoo! was hasty in turning down the offer and they haven’t come up with another alternative strategy for future growth.
One particular rebel investor and open critic of Mr Yang is Carl Icahn. He has negotiated three seats on the board following a lengthy campaign against the firm.
The new vote’s percentage will increase pressure on Mr Yang and his fellow directors.
The review of the voting process took place because a major shareholder, Capital Research Global Investor, complained that their votes hadn’t been properly reflected in the original outcome.
Following the review a printing mix-up by a intermediary processing firm was blamed for 100 million shares not being accurately reflected.
The new figures also show that almost 40% of shares were withheld from that re-election of chairman Roy Bostock, the original share was 20%.
Even though other directors also faced protest votes against being re-elected than it was first thought, none of the original will be over turned.
Hedge fund manager and Yahoo! shareholder Eric Jackson said “It is important for Yahoo’s board to understand there is still pressure on them. I thought Yahoo’s board was kind of let off the hook last week when they didn’t really deserve to be.”
Yahoo! said in a statement that there had been what it described as a “tabulation error” in the results. They stressed that this had not affected to outcome of the election of directors.
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