Well, we knew that. There really wasn’t any question after Icahn took the deal for seats on the board for himself and a few handpicked followers.
Jonathon Miller won’t be one of them however – his non-compete agreement with AOL is still in effect, allowing Time Warner to block his joining the Yahoo board.
The annual meeting saw the former Yahoo board reelected, then at the board meeting immediately afterwards Robert Kotick resigned in favor of Carl Icahn, and the board voted to expand its slate from 9 to 11 members with the slots remaining unfilled as of last report.
Attendance was slimmer than it might have been if the proxy fight had not been called off – many major stockholders opted to skip it altogether, while those that did show were unhappy but subdued.
Complaints about the way Yahoo handles in house productivity and gripes about the share prices and lack of true competition with Google made up the bulk of the stockholders’ concerns, the thwarted deal with Microsoft being brought up only occasionally.
Yang and Bostock reiterated their stand once again, stating that the original offer from Microsoft had been unacceptable, and it had been the only true offer they ever received. This rankled Microsoft, which announced that they wanted a copy of the full statement and stated that they were still being portrayed inaccurately by Yang and the Yahoo board.
Eric Jackson was perhaps one of the most disgruntled voices at the meeting, saying he wanted Bostock gone along with Yang and asking rather acerbically why a board member who last year had the support of less that one in three stockholders remained seated on the board.
Yang actually received an 85% positive vote and shows no signs of walking away despite rumors that he planned to quietly resign following the meeting.
The actual new board of directors will be seated in two weeks, but there is no real expectation that much will change. The next big hurdle is the investigation by authorities into the Yahoo Google deal, which is expected to gather momentum now that the board meeting is finally out of the way.
All in all, an almost disappointing end to the last few months, at least from the disinterested spectators point of view; lots more fireworks had been expected before the Icahn-Yahoo group hug. Perhaps now we will have to look elsewhere for vicarious entertainment.
Tags: Icahn, stockholders, Yahoo, Yang