Yahoo Nears Clearing Biondi And Chapple to Join Board
Yahoo Inc. is in the final stages of vetting former Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Frank Biondi and John Chapple, the former CEO of Nextel Partners, to join its board, according to a person familiar with the matter, as it moves toward completing its agreement with Carl Icahn, who backed down from his campaign to oust Yahoo's directors last month.
Yahoo -- which is expected to announce the appointments by Friday -- has yet to make a final decision, according to this person, but the informed individual characterized the two names as the board's preferred choices who were likely to be selected unless any unforeseen issues arose. One finalist, former Grey Global Group Inc. advertising agency head Edward Meyer, is no longer being considered, this person said. A Yahoo spokesman declined to comment. Messrs. Biondi and Chapple couldn't be reached for comment.
If finalized, Mr. Biondi and Mr. Chapple will be filling two new slots created in the pact with Mr. Icahn, who also won a seat as part of the agreement.
Under that pact -- sealed in the final days before Yahoo's annual holders' meeting -- Yahoo agreed to expand its board to accommodate Mr. Icahn and two new directors from a list of nine people Mr. Icahn recommended. All but one of those names -- including Mr. Biondi and Mr. Chapple -- were on Mr. Icahn's slate of nominees to replace the entire Yahoo board during the proxy campaign he dropped.
How closely their opinions about Yahoo match up to Mr. Icahn's remain unclear.
Both men are seasoned corporate CEOs with strong experience in the media and technology worlds, respectively. Mr. Biondi ran Viacom and also served as the chairman of Universal Studios. Mr. Chapple, ran Nextel Partners, a small wireless provider that was sold to Sprint Nextel, and is currently the president of private-equity firm Hawkeye Investments LLC.
Mr. Icahn and Mr. Biondi have teamed up on proxy battles before. As part of his campaign to take control the Time Warner Inc. board a few years ago, Mr. Icahn expressed his desire to install Mr. Biondi as CEO of Time Warner if the effort, which failed, succeeded.
The three new members join a board struggling to maintain the confidence of shareholders. At Yahoo's recent shareholder meeting, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock received support from only 60% of Yahoo shareholder votes cast. Board member Jerry Yang, who is also Yahoo's chief executive, received support from 66% of votes cast.
Yahoo has depicted its agreement with Mr. Icahn as a chance to move beyond the uncertainty it has faced since Microsoft Corp.'s Jan. 31 offer to acquire it with a new board ready to evaluate its options with fresh eyes.
How aggressively Mr. Icahn intends to keep pressuring for a sweeping strategic change -- such as a deal with AOL or Yahoo selling its search business to Microsoft -- remains unclear.
By: Joann Lublin and Jessica Vascellaro
Wall Street Journal; August 13, 2008
