Related Articles
Top Stories
May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
May 28 2012 07:53
The City of Cape Town has spent R175m running the Myciti bus service since the Soccer World Cup compared to an income of R35m, a report says.
San Francisco - Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang and members of the internet firm's board of directors are likely to come under fire on Friday from shareholders peeved about failed takeover talks with Microsoft.
A hotel in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose will be the arena for an annual stockholders meeting that was postponed while Yahoo dealt with on-and-off talks with Microsoft and an attack by corporate raider Carl Icahn.
Icahn, whose campaign to overthrow Yahoo's board ended last week in a truce, said on Thursday he will not attend the annual shareholders meeting.
However, other Yahoo investors critical of the company have vowed publicly to be heard at the gathering.
In a posting on his blog, Icahn urged fellow Yahoo shareholders to check their rage for the sake of the company.
"The proxy fight is over and it will not do shareholders or Yahoo any good to have the annual meeting turn into a media event for no purpose," Icahn wrote.
Icahn said that along with three seats on the board, he has been guaranteed a say in any "meaningful transactions" involving Yahoo. The billionaire said he met with Yang and board chairperson Roy Bostock in recent days.
"While we still disagree on many points, I have great hope 'this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship'," Icahn wrote, quoting a famous line from the film "Casablanca".
"I look forward to working harmoniously with the new board of Yahoo."
Yahoo promised Icahn and two of his allies seats on its board of directors in exchange for Icahn withdrawing a slate of nominees he was backing to replace the incumbents.
Icahn bought up nearly five percent of Yahoo's stock in recent months and launched a campaign to overthrow board members he accuses of botching tie-up talks with US software giant Microsoft.
Some shareholder advisory companies are recommending Yahoo shareholders vote against Bostock and two other directors even though they are running unopposed for re-election to the board.
Yahoo says the names of new board members will not be revealed at Friday's meeting with shareholders.
Friday's gathering will be the first chance Yahoo stockholders have to take Yang and other executives to task for not orchestrating a tie-up with Microsoft, which offered nearly $50bn for the Sunnyvale, California, firm.
Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo to better battle Google, which claims the lion's share of the multi-billion-dollar internet search and advertising market.
Microsoft walked away from negotiations May 3 after Yahoo rejected an offer it raised from $31 to $33 per share. Yahoo stock was priced at slightly less than $20 per share in after hours trading on Thursday.
After ending talks with Microsoft, Yahoo announced an alliance with Google to put the internet search king's expertise to work pumping money from its floundering rival's online advertising.
- AFP