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Icahn's Agenda: Get Shareholder Support, Revive MSFT-YHOO Talks

Posted May 16, 2008 02:12pm EDT by Aaron Task in Investing, Internet, Venture Capital, M and A, IPOs
Related: MSFT, YHOO, LM

Having launched a proxy fight, billionaire financier Carl Icahn's next move is to amass enough support for his effort, while simultaneously getting Yahoo and Microsoft back to the negotiating table.

So far, he's having more success with the former vs. the latter.  

Yesterday, Icahn landed a big fish in the person of John Paulson, who owns 50 million shares of Tech Ticker's parent. Other hedge funds, including Mason Capital Management, Farallon Capital and Appaloosa, are also supporting Icahn, The NY Post reports.

Still unknown is the stance of Capital Re's Gordon Crawford and Legg Mason's Bill Miller, who are key to any effort to oust (or merely influence) Yahoo's board.  Combined, Crawford and Gordon represent ownership of about 23% of Yahoo shares.

Crawford has publicly scolded Jerry Yang and Yahoo's "so-called independent" board so it's reasonable to think he could be supporting Icahn's effort.

Miller would seem to be more of a wildcard given his recent comments in The NY Times: “Unless Microsoft is willing to come back and discuss a deal, it is hard to see what additional directors or new directors would be able to accomplish on behalf of shareholders.”
 
The other challenge for Icahn is to get the two parties back to the negotiating table. That might not be so easy given the tone of Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock's letter to Icahn and the ongoing silence from Microsoft.

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