6 posts and columns on Capital World Investors

Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.

in News on May 10 at 3:56 pm PT

Is the tenure of Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson — who is now big with the excuses — in trouble if other shareholders start to bolt?
yahoo_sad_011238517088_640x360

Ready to Rumble or Make Nice? Activist Shareholder Daniel Loeb Could Strike Sooner Than Yahoo Thinks.

in News on February 9 at 10:14 am PT

It’s like the movie “The Gray,” except it’s not clear yet who gets eaten and who does the eating.
loeb_grey_380

Microsoft (Inevitably) Weighs In on the Yahoo Shareholder Vote Miscount

in News on August 6, 2008 at 12:08 am PT

Yesterday–in a patented playbook move–some top Microsoft execs didn’t miss a chance to slap around Yahoo over its shareholder vote debacle, letting it be known to industry insiders (on the very loud QT, of course) that the Internet company knew full well that its biggest investor, Capital Research & Management, was going to vote a large number of shares against it. In essence, Microsofties are arguing that knowledge of a major investor’s dissatisfaction should have prompted Yahoo to question its unusually positive voting results at its annual meeting on Friday and ask the outside voting tabulator to recheck its numbers before officially releasing them. While BoomTown is careful to consider the sources here–the collapse of Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo has left quite a bit of acrimony between the pair–they actually might have a point.

The Yahoo Shareholder Vote: Like Florida, Except More Confusing!

in News on August 5, 2008 at 6:50 am PT

All Yahoo needs now is for former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to show up and start recounting votes. It could happen, given all the crazy characters who have been drawn to the much-beleaguered Internet company like a magnet, in 2008. It’s almost as if there is a voodoo curse on Yahoo and, so, you didn’t think the digital gods would let it have more than one weekend of good news, did you? No, they will not, it seems.

Yahoo Shareholder Vote Number-Crunching–Whither Cap Re's No Vote?

in News on August 4, 2008 at 2:39 pm PT

There is a mini-tempest brewing over how shares were tallied in the Yahoo annual meeting last Friday, specifically around whether a group of votes withheld by one of Yahoo’s major shareholders was not counted, counted incorrectly or even voted incorrectly by the investor. According to sources close to the thinking at Capital Research & Management, the proxy committees for its two large funds that hold a significant stake in Yahoo recommended last week that they withhold votes specifically from CEO Jerry Yang and from various board members, such as Chairman Roy Bostock, to register disappointment with their performance. Thus, sources said, the investment fund has approached outside vote tabulator Broadridge Financial Solutions, a Lake Success, N.Y.-based financial services company that does securities clearing and processing, about whether those votes were correctly counted.

Major Yahoo Investor Leans Toward Backing Carl Icahn Too

in News on July 7, 2008 at 9:46 am PT

Microsoft’s not the only one backing billionaire investor Carl Icahn in his quest to unseat Yahoo’s leadership and board–major Yahoo investor Gordon Crawford told Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang in a face-to-face meeting last week that he was seriously considering voting against Yahoo in the looming proxy fight. The troubled meeting that took place last Tuesday in Los Angeles between Capital Research Global Investors’ Crawford and Yang–accompanied by three Yahoo board members–could be seen as a portent of what is to come at the company’s annual meeting on August 1. And those signs are definitely not good for Yahoo’s current leaders.