Yahoo! Holder to Vote Company Slate

SAN FRANCISCO - Dealing a blow to billionaire investor Carl Icahn and his dissident slate, one of Yahoo!'s (YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) biggest shareholders said Friday that he would side with the company's current board at the Aug. 1 annual shareholder meeting.

Bill Miller, chief investment officer of Legg Mason, which owns about 60.7 million shares of Yahoo!, or about 4.4% of the company's outstanding shares, said that after meeting several times with the board, including founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang, he will vote in favor of keeping the current members in place.

"We believe the current Board acted with care and diligence when evaluating Microsoft's(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) offers," Miller said in a statement. "We believe the Board is independent and focused on value creation for long-term shareholders."

On Jan. 31, Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion and later bumped that offer to $47.5 billion before ultimately withdrawing it and replacing it with a deal to buy the company's search business for $1 billion.

Yahoo! rejected the search deal, and also rebuffed a sweetened offer presented jointly by Microsoft and Icahn, which would have guaranteed $2.3 billion in annual revenue to Yahoo! for five years, with the option to extend the deal for another five.

On Friday, Miller said he would prefer to see Icahn and Yahoo! "reach a mutual agreement on the composition of the Board and end this disruptive proxy contest."

"If Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo!, it can make the terms and conditions of its offer public," Miller said. "If Yahoo! shareholders support it, I am confident the Board of Yahoo! will accept it."