Icahn Agenda in Focus As Yahoo Board MeetsYahoo Inc.'s revamped board will meet for the first time next week, giving investor Carl Icahn his first chance to push his agenda for the Internet company from the inside.
The new board, which includes Mr. Icahn and two new directors Yahoo chose and Mr. Icahn supported, Frank Biondi and John Chapple, will hold a board dinner Monday night followed by a meeting Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.
It isn't clear whether Mr. Icahn will show up, according to someone close to the situation. What changes he intends to push for -- and how vigorously -- also remains unclear. He couldn't be reached for comment.
Mr. Icahn, Mr. Biondi and Mr. Chapple joined Yahoo's board this summer as part of the activist investor's agreement to drop his campaign to oust Yahoo's directors. Mr. Icahn attacked the Yahoo board for rebuffing multiple offers from Microsoft Corp. to buy all or parts of Yahoo.
Mr. Biondi is former chief executive of Viacom Inc. and former chairman and CEO of Universal Studios. Mr. Chapple is former CEO of Nextel Partners, a small wireless company that Sprint Nextel Corp. bought.
During Tuesday's board meeting, Yahoo executives will offer an update about ongoing talks with Time Warner Inc., said one knowledgeable person. The two sides continue to discuss a possible combination of Yahoo with AOL, according to people familiar with the matter, although talks haven't progressed significantly in recent weeks.
Another likely topic at that meeting: potential regulatory opposition to Yahoo's search-advertising partnership with Google Inc. Any unraveling of that agreement would be a big blow for Yahoo and could accelerate the board's consideration of other options. The board struck the search-ad pact in June as an alternative to selling its search business to Microsoft.
Some Yahoo investors are impatient. Shareholders withheld more than 30% of their votes cast for four of nine Yahoo directors at the company's Aug. 1 shareholder meeting. Yahoo's stock price fell to a five-year low of $17.58 earlier this month but has since made a small rebound. As of Aug. 1, Mr. Icahn controlled 68.8 million shares, roughly 5% of Yahoo.
By: Jessica E. Vascellaro and Joann S. Lublin
Wall Street Journal; September 20, 2008
