We were waiting.
Activist investor Carl Icahn has posted his thoughts on the Yahoo proxy battle on his blog - the Icahn report. Unredacted, you can read them here.
The short version though, is that it seems, indeed, that fellow Yahoo investors just didn’t have quite the same appetite for sweeping change as Icahn did. There wasn’t enough support for his campaign. Bill Miller’s announcement last Friday that he was supporting the incumbent Yahoo board was clearly the clincher.
From the Icahn report:
Proxy fights are very expensive and time-consuming. Unlike political elections, where change is often seen, it is unfortunately extremely difficult to take control of a company. By the end of last week, I realized that although many large shareholders supported me and my slate for the board, they were nervous about having a complete change of control.
In the end then, three board seats had to do. The full settlement agreement, filed with the SEC, is available here.
The real news though:
Now that the proxy fight with Yahoo is over, certain constraints concerning my views about corporate governance have been removed and I intend to communicate more frequently in the near future… As some of you may have noted there was an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. Within the next few days - I intend to answer it on the blog.
Related links
YahooCahn! - FT Alphaville
Icahn: the first response - FT Alphaville
