Pia Sarkar
SAN FRANCISCO -- Expect a fierce battle for shareholder votes now that Carl Icahn is attempting to wrestle for control of Yahoo!(YHOO Quote - Cramer on YHOO - Stock Picks).
The billionaire investor has put forth a slate of 10 candidates to unseat Yahoo!'s own board of directors come July 3 at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Icahn is looking to win the hearts and minds of disgruntled investors still steamed over failed merger negotiations with Microsoft (MSFT Quote - Cramer on MSFT - Stock Picks). Christopher Young, director of M&A research for RiskMetrics Group, likens the upcoming proxy fight to a political campaign, with both Icahn and Yahoo! going on road shows and putting in some serious face time with investors. The two sides will also likely exchange combative letters filed through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Young expects Icahn to come down hard on Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang, arguing that as the company's cofounder, he was too emotionally attached to be able to negotiate in good faith with Microsoft, and that Yahoo!'s board may have shown him too much deference. Icahn offered a preview of his campaign in a letter to Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock on Thursday, in which he named his own slate and also took shots at the way the board has run the company. "It is clear to me that the board of Yahoo! has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft," he wrote. Whether Icahn can steer shareholders to his side will largely depend on his ability to reopen talks with Microsoft, which on May 3 withdrew its $47.5 billion bid to buy Yahoo!
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