Yahoo Delay Could Squeeze Icahn's Options; Plus, Ballmer and Page Sound Off

Updated from 11:25 a.m. EDT 

The relative calm surrounding the Microsoft-Yahoo saga has been broken with a series of developments, most notably Yahoo's announcement that it is delaying its shareholder meeting until "around the end of July."

Yahoo moved the meeting from July 3 "in order to give the company time for regulators to approve its preliminary proxy materials and distribute them to shareholders." says the NY Post.

Another possible explanation (or side benefit for Yahoo) is that moving the meeting could put pressure on Carl Icahn's reported 49 million share option position, says Jon Najarian, co-founder of optionMONSTER.com and a CNBC contributor.

The expiration of those options is not known but Icahn could face losses of "hundreds of millions, if not billions" if those options were to expire out of the money or he is forced to sell them before the shareholder meeting, Najarian says.

Icahn's office not return calls seeking comment.

Update: Ichan's Yahoo options have a strike price of $19.50 and don't expire until November, according to his 14A filing with the SEC.   

Speaking of comments, Steve Ballmer issued an eye-opener during an appearance in Moscow: "Yahoo was never the strategy we were pursuing," Ballmer said, according to Reuters.

To Najarian, this statement "could put Ballmer in a legal bind" if it's determined Microsoft's strategy was really to "wreck Yahoo" by putting a bid on the table it never intended to honor.

Subsequent reports added more context to the statement, and surely Ballmer's lawyers would argue it's not Microsoft's strategy to buy Yahoo now, as Ballmer has said previously.

Meanwhile, chatter about a Yahoo-Google combination is circulating again after Larry Page's comments yesterday about structuring a deal to pass regulatory muster.

As I wrote yesterday, there could be a "Memorial Day surprise" in this ongoing corporate soap opera.