Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Déjà Vu: Activist Yahoo Shareholder Takes Aim at Board

And so it begins again for Yahoo.

When shareholders attack, that is.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Third Point LLC, a large shareholder of Yahoo, called for a new board.

The multi-billion dollar hedge fund now owns 5.1 percent of the Silicon Valley Internet giant, making it the third largest shareholder.

“This letter details our principled demands for sweeping changes in both the Board of Directors (the “Board”) and Company leadership, and outlines the hidden value of Yahoo, which has been severely damaged — but not irreparably — by poor management and governance,” said Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb in a letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock.

Loeb outlines the damage, including the botched takeover fight with Microsoft and its hiring of the now ousted CEO Carol Bartz.

He calls for Bostock’s departure too from the board, as well as others:

“It is time that certain members of this Board were held accountable for its past failures and their individual roles. Accordingly, we insist that Mr. Bostock, who championed Ms. Bartz’s hiring and led the charge against the Microsoft deal, promptly resign from the Board. We also demand that fellow Directors Arthur Kern and Vyomesh Joshi, who have stood by silently during these last five years of woeful performance, join Mr. Bostock in resignation. Finally, we can only assume that Director Susan James, the President of Tri-Valley Animal Rescue, will also resign, given her close relationship with Ms. Bartz. If she does not do so voluntarily, the Board should request her resignation as well.”

The last time Yahoo had a big shareholder fight — with well-known investor Carl Icahn — there was much damage all around, especially to its share price.

You can read Third Point’s 13D filing here:

YHOO-20110908-SC13D-0

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The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald