Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
Activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point just got an unlikely and powerful ally in his proxy fight against Yahoo: Berkshire Hathaway’s famed Warren Buffett.
In a wide-ranging interview on CNBC this morning, when asked about the controversy, Buffett said about the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s excuse that the addition of a false computer science degree to Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s bio was an “inadvertent error”:
“It doesn’t sound like an inadvertent error … If I thought as a director, if I thought that an officer had consistently misstated some fact to me, I think I’d probably do something about it,” said the legendary investor, in part, who also noted he did not know all the facts.
Still, said Buffett: “If you can’t trust the people you’re working with, you’ve got a problem.”
Ziiiiing, because if the sage of Omaha thinks it’s bad, it has moved to worse.
And, indeed it has — earlier today, Loeb lobbed a legal demand for information about Thompson’s hiring and more.
Yahoo’s board is conducting an investigation into the matter, led by independent director Fred Amoroso.
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