The single biggest PITA for Yahoo has decided to leave his board position.

If you’re not aware of just how disruptive the self-labeled “activist investor” Carl Icahn has been, a quick review of our archives should bring you up to speed.

It appears that Carl Icahn isn’t happy unless he’s getting his way, and for all intents and purposes, he’s had his way with Yahoo. After criticizing the company for not selling to Microsoft, forcing his way onto the board of directors, then dumping a bunch of shares, our prediction that he was about to bail, has come true.

In a parting statement, Icahn appears to offer legitimate praise for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz:

“Carol is doing a great job and I believe the Microsoft transaction will provide great long term benefits, the potential of which many still do not understand.”

Translation: Now that Yahoo has given up on search, it will start fading away–making it much easier for Microsoft to mount another takeover bid.

Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo, was equal in returning praise for Icahn:

“Carl has been an important member of our board and has helped us through some significant transitions. We are all grateful for his active role shaping the future of Yahoo.”

Translation: Security!

I didn’t spot a statement from Bartz herself, so we’ll remind you of what she had to say about Icahn, not so long ago:

“Icahn is just another shareholder. What’s he going to do, fire me?”

Translation: [see above]

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Billionaire Financier Carl Icahn

According to a Reuters article published this morning, Icahn is being very vocal about his opposition regarding the proposed CIT restructure and his hopes that bondholders will reject the current plan allowing the company to go bankrupt. On Tuesday, he offered the smaller bondholders an assurance that he would guarantee the notes if they did not liquidate for less than 60 cents on the dollar. According to the Reuters article:

The company on Friday warned that if bondholders reject its proposed restructuring it would have to liquidate, which could dampen the recovery value of the bonds. CIT said its unsecured bonds would be worth somewhere between 6 cents and 37 cents on the dollar in this scenario.

 

Icahn, on the other hand, said CIT’s proposed restructuring will destroy the value of the company and that the current Board of Directors should not be able to retain control of the company.

 

This Wall Street Journal article journal adds more depth to the offer and Icahn’s concerns:

Mr. Icahn said he believes CIT’s plan will “result in the destruction of value at CIT” and his latest assault is an attempt to “neutralize the variety of scare tactics designed by CIT to coerce noteholders into supporting the company’s plan.”

 

Mr. Icahn, who previously criticized the company using money to “purchase votes for its exchange offer/prepackaged bankruptcy,” is offering an incentive for brokers and financial advisers of $5 for every $1,000 of notes tendered if they convince their clients to support his plan.

 

Bloomberg and Forbes are also covering the story.

Yahoo, Microsoft and Icahn: In the first part of this year Yahoo results were: Yahoo’s business segments declined, display was by far the hardest hit. Display ad sales fell 27% sequentially and 13% YoY to $371 million, as premium inventory is either not selling out, or is selling at very depressed CPM’s. Yahoo’s search business declined less, but is hardly a bright spot. Search revenue dropped 9% sequentially, compared with Google’s 4% sequential decline.

In his interview with the Journal, Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo said:

I think that I can bring stability back to Yahoo, and I want to get on with building the company. I think that the destabilizing by Microsoft has become more and more intentional. I am not happy about it.

Yang also stated: Any effort by investors to “trust” Icahn and his proposed investor slate would be “really a bad choice.”

In his recent blog, Carl Icahn tells this story:

Several years ago, I bought a big chunk of ‘distressed’ debt in a major company and landed on the creditors committee when it filed for Chapter 11. Shortly thereafter, the bankers who were hired by senior management told me that I would have to pay retention bonuses to keep its top managers from leaving.

The company, they warned, would crumble if these star managers left. Nine had already threatened to march out the door if they didn’t get substantial bonuses. I told them I was fed up with retention bonuses. Where was the line waiting to hire these “star” managers who were responsible for bankrupting the company in the first place?

So I flatly refused. After much argument, the company’s lawyers and bankers said, let’s take it to the bankruptcy judge.

The judge said, “Mr. Icahn, why don’t you want to pay retention bonuses?”

“It’s simple, your honor,” I replied. “It’s because I don’t want to retain them!”

“Hmm, good point,” the judge said. “You win.”

Hasn’t Jerry Yang made enough money? More than his can spend I am sure in his life time. Can’t he see the benefit of having a future relationship with Microsoft before Yahoo’s competitors make their move?

Yang also stated: He has been perplexed by Microsoft’s unwillingness to continue negotiations with the company if it wants to do a deal. He reiterated the company’s stance that it is willing to look at any deal Microsoft wants to propose.

Can’t Yang see that Icahn could be the key to making a favorable arrangement happen between Yahoo and Microsoft.

Yahoo is a great company, hope its not too late but what do I know, all I can say if I was Yang I would be on a plane meeting with Icahn and Microsoft to make this happen for everyone sake. It just makes good business sense for the two organizations to come to terms. The relationship is just good business for everyone in the US.

Icahn’s and Microsoft’s records speak for themselves, when you add Jerry Yang and Yahoo the world better watch out for a great new type of competitor. Wallstreet brace yourself!

Remember all the drama between Carl Icahn and Yahoo last year? As a major shareholder, he lobbied for Yahoo to take Microsoft’s buyout offer (any offer!). And then there were some I’ll-replace-your-whole-board-of-directors threats, and some nuh uhs. And some I’ll-get-you-yet,-Yang!s and some “what-ever”s and some pbbbts and “You’re nuts”s. . . . Yeah, for a while there it was a little ugly. Eventually, Yahoo tried to placate Icahn with a luxurious spot on their board for him and two of his closest friends!

But it looks like even that wasn’t enough to keep Icahn happy for long. AllThingsD reports today that Carl Icahn has recently sold off a sixth of his shares in Yahoo at a significant loss—$125M. Although he retains his and his cronies’ seats on the board, and 63M shares (about 4.5% of the company), taking that kind of loss doesn’t look so good for Yahoo.

Icahn, of course, can argue the same line he’s held all along: that Yahoo should have removed the “poison pill” severance plan and taken Microsoft’s original deal instead of letting their stock prices fall and wimping out with this search deal with Microsoft. However, he did get at least one wish, in addition to his board seats: Jerry Yang is no longer Yahoo’s CEO.

In the SEC filing, Icahn says that he’s just balancing his portfolio, and he’s still bullish on Yahoo, its CEO and its future (including the MSFT deal). (Carol Bartz, however, doesn’t return the compliment: in a recent Forbes piece, she said, “Icahn is just another shareholder. What’s he going to do, fire me?”)

What do you think? Is Icahn preparing to cut and run? Punishing Yahoo for not obeying (pretty hard lesson to inflict on himself!)?

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Deep Appreciation:for Phillip Terrence Ragon, founder and sole proprietor of database-software provider InterSystems who donated $100 million to establish a research institute that focuses on expediting the development of an AIDS vaccine, and to Pfizer Canada which contributed a further $2 million to British Columbia’s Center for Drug Research and Development (CDRD); and The State of Georgia is contemplating a $180 million bioscience research park.

Social Agitation: French scientists decided their street protests were their best approach to halting the government’s science and higher education reforms and rejected mediation.

Better Cogitation:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) shows neuroprotective effects in animal models of Alzheimers’, but it won’t stop cries of ‘brain drain’ following Canada’s 2009 Budget.

Free Publication: ScienceInsider reports that Rep. Conyers’ (D-MI) bill that would eliminate free full-text publication of NIH-funded research is back on the table this session.

Self Regulation:More Pharma companies are implementing voluntary disclosure of physician payments (under threat of legislation); and some researchers are taking steps to prevent disclosures of potentially harmful research (under threat of annihilation).

Reconsideration: Researchers at Emory decided that flu pandemic deaths in 1918 may have been primarily from bacterial superinfections rather than the virus itself; Icahn decided to nominate another slate of Biogen-Idec directors; Everybody decided to take another look at their luciferase screening assay controls; and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) decided to take another look at payment for PSA testing for prostate cancer detection.

Delaware’s Chancery Court has ruled in favor of Carl Ichan and sustained his objection to Realogy’s attempt to restructure its debt by stiffing its bond holders. This will make things awkward for the company.

If you didn’t brave the crowds last Friday, trust me, you weren’t missing much. While I fare pretty well in large crowds, the actual sales were nothing to write home about. I’m just glad I didn’t wake up at 4:00 am to save 20%. My time is worth more money than that.

Black Friday was said to set the tone for the rest of the week for Wall Street. If numbers were up, investors would be optimistic and confident. Yet Wall Street reveals once again investors uneasiness about the holiday shopping season. Despite Black Friday being mildly successful, investors are remaining cautious showing Friday wasn’t exactly indicative of the rest of week. The Dow is currently down 4.88% at 8397.88. Investors were feeling particularly bullish about DJIA gearing up for Thanksgiving weekend, but sentiment dramatically dropped according to predictors on PredictWallStreet to become more bearish, showing how cautious investors are. The DJIA is also forecasted today as well. You’ll have to click here to see what direction it’s been forecasted.

Once again rumors are a whirl that some deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft was going down. Apparently more fiction than fact, as Yahoo’s market cap is apparently $16 billion and the rumors reported Microsoft would acquire them for $20 billion. Something is going on at Yahoo!, nonetheless. Carl Icahn has been swooping up shares and sentiment for YHOO this week is currently becoming bullish, despite that you can see the price is dropping on PredictWallStreet’s sentiment chart when you overlay the price quote. In my opinion, this bullishness is due mainly to Yahoo!’s search for a new CEO, as investors remain hopeful for a turnaround. This bullishness may have been propped up somewhat by the MSFT deal rumors, but I believe it shows investors are optimistic about the company’s future regardless. Despite that Yahoo! is down right now, I have predicted UP for them. In this market, anything goes.

PredictWallStreet has published several forecasts this morning which have been beating the market by 65% in the past months. Most notably, the DJIA and NASDAQ are forecasted. To see what direction, you first must make a prediction to see the sentiment chart, poll results, and forecast results. You can also download the Forecast Ticker which will let you know immediately which stocks have been given signals. The tool can be kept on the desktop while you continue to do work uninterrupted.

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On November 17th, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Chairman of HDNet, was flagged by the SEC for insider trading. About a month before, Virgin Group Chairman and life addict Richard Branson abandoned his latest word record attempt. Just 3 days ago investor extraordinaire Carl Icahn doubled his shares in Yahoo! as CNBC’s anchors was throwing in the towel in on the company’s future. All pretty interesting stuff.

What do they all have in common? Yes, they are all self-made billionaires – #446, #236, and #46 respectively on Forbes 2008 list of the World’s Billionaires. But they also blog. And being that they tend to drop some interesting knowledge on their aforementioned activities, ruminate on plenty of other topics, and control an inordinate proportion of the wold’s capital, we should probably listen up.

Of course, why go to each other their individual blogs when you can get their thoughts delivered to you daily in Reader. Maybe throw all the feeds in a ‘Billionaires’ folder like I did. That’s some golden knowledge.

Check them out here:
blogmaverick.com – Mark Cuban, $2.6 Billion
entrepreneur.virgin.com – Richard Branson, $4.4. Billion
icahnreport.com – Carl Icahn, $14 Billion

Why Reader #2: Follow the leaders.

–

rock on.

dp

Jay-Z – A Billie

“i’m not a businessman, i’m a business, man”

Most people who trade relatively frequently don’t realize huge profits.  Their losses typically match their gains, cancelling out much of their activity and racking up transaction costs.

Others, particularly whom I like to refer to as guru investors, just print money.

Expert communities are powerful but only show part of the story

While this year’s market has been tough on pretty much anyone, it’s important to keep some perspective.  Investors like Eddie Lampert, George Soros, Ken Griffen — these guys have posted huge results for years.  We’ve spent a lot of time focused on expert investment communities made up of smart people like you and me.  Combining both financial pros and amateurs, sites like Covestor provide a framework for community validation, participation, peering.

• Validation: good expert investment communities require hooks into real trading accounts so that all trades are logged and verified.  This means that participants back their picks up with their own money and that stats and performance are objective and not the “I-caught-a-fish-this-big”-type of comments most traders use in their discussions with their peers.

• Participation: While some expert investment community sites limit participation in the community to vetted professionals, others have pretty open standards for participation.  These sites are part Yahoo Finance, part E*Trade, and part Facebook.

• Peering: Most general social networking/community sites are structured as inverted pyramids.  Only a small percentage of users actually generate content while the vast majority likes to watch what’s going on.  This spectating doesn’t necessarily mean that these users are passive — statistics I’ve received from sites like Vestopia show that these passive users actually are compelled to take action offsite with increased trading activity.

The point here is that the cream rises to the top.  Your neighbor with an internet hookup and a subscription to TheStreet.com can have an amazing trading record vis-a-vis his peers.  But, he’s managing money in the thousands of dollars.  What about the big boy hedge fund/mutual investors managing millions or billions?  They’re not participating in these expert communities (at least not yet).

Piggyback the big boys to profit

While many investment managers ultimately fail to beat the averages over the long term, some consistently do, while others have periods of strong outperformance only to lose their hot hand at some point.

With a combination of technology, regulation, and new business models, investors can follow almost every move of these large players and invest alongside them along the way.  In fact, investors can access all of this information for free.

The result?  An investor can mimic the performance of some of the best money managers out there or decide to put together an all-star portfolio that combines specific stock picks from a number of these guru investors.

Our next post will discuss Rule #2 of our New Rules of Investing and how to put together a portfolio by piggybacking world-renowned investors like Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn and Mohnish Pabrai.

Make sure you check out the second part of this series, How to piggyback guru investors, which explains in easy steps how to monitor professional investors’ portfolios.

Subscribe to New Rules of Investing to learn more about piggybacking guru investors and other ways to profit via Investing 2.0.

Sunnyvale, CA (FAQ NEWS) – Jerry Wang is a Taiwanese American entrepreneur and the Co-founder, former CEO and Chief Yahoo! of Yahoo! Inc. As of 2008, his net worth is estimated to be US$2.3 billion and is ranked 524th among the richest people in the world according to Forbes.

Today he stated that he will step down amidst criticism from his own board, the Microsoft fallout giving fierce unknown warrior billionaire, Sum Icahn Wang 杨致远 complete power over the Silicon Valley Search and content company that now declares “to all do evil”

Here is how you save GM. Bail out is an incorrect approach. 

First let’s realize that if they go belly up the government will have to take over the pension fund thru the pension guarantee fund, so just take over the pension plan now. Take it off the books for GM now, buying the pension guarantee fund taking over the gm pension plan; and increasing the health insurance premium and freezing COLA increases in the pension fund. Also take over the Legacy cost of the health care with the “new” plan proposed health care insurance by Obama for national health care. The GM workers and ex workers will have to accept a higher premium for their health insurance if they want to keep health insurance. Next take the same position the federal gov’t did when we “bailed out” Chrysler. With the gov’t having stock options which can bring the taxpayer profit later. Gm needs to be reorganized as if it were in bankruptcy.

The U.A.W. has supported national health care for generations. It was a primary focus for Walter P. Reuther, one of the union’s founders. He began arguing in favor of universal health care after World War II, and was one of the forces behind the creation of Medicare for older Americans.(NY Times)

In the absence of a national system, the union instead secured generous health care benefits for its members and retirees, which have since added up to a $55 billion liability for G.M. and a nearly $100 billion liability for the industry over all.

At G.M., that liability will now be borne by the VEBA, which G.M. will start with $29.9 billion in funding, once the courts and federal regulators approve it.

Ms. Bunker at G.M. said she could not comment on what would happen to the funds in the VEBA if a national health care plan became available. But over the long term, union officials say, the country needs a master plan for health care, which the new institute will be charged with exploring. (NY Times)

It’s not complicated. When I advised Secretary of Treasury and Senator Lloyd Bentsen we realized not to make it complicated. Some things are just obvious. Only congress at large wants to make it complicated. OBTW . . . We need to get Carl Icahn to give the gov’t a plan on how to break up AIG into 3 or 4 companies and let the weak sister fail. Let Icahn have the spoils. Screw the AIG corporate elite.

How about a little game of Jeopardy? Here’s your “Mergers & Acquisitions” question for $500.

“He owns shares in Time Warner, was just named to the Yahoo board (along with two cohorts) and appears to be behind a new talks with Time Warner’s AOL unit.”

If you answered “Who is Carl Icahn?” then you and I are on the same page.

The eternal disrupter, Carl Icahn’s rear end is barely warming his seat on Yahoo’s board, and we’re already seeing reports that the company is once again interested in negotiating with AOL.

The green light for the talks came as Yahoo’s directors met for the first time since activist investor Carl Icahn was granted access to the boardroom. Mr Icahn and two allies, former Viacom (NYSE:VIA.B) boss Frank Biondi and former Nextel head Frank Chapple, were given seats at the board table as part of a settlement to head off a revolt at the internet company’s last shareholder meeting.

According to one person familiar with the company’s thinking, the Yahoo board approved a new round of discussions with AOL, though active deal negotiations are not underway at this stage.

OK, seriously. Did anyone NOT see that coming?

PS. And in case that doesn’t work out, Yahoo is apparently exploring the sell-off of some of its more valuable assets. Hmm, smells like Icahn’s handy-work as well!

The 90’s Called Yahoo & Asked for its Homepage Back – New Design Coming!
Yahoo Adds a Soundtrack to the SERP

This press release just crossed the wires. It seems that there is peace between Yahoo and Carl Icahn now that’s it’s official that his two picks are on the Yahoo board. Jerry Yang even has a few nice things to say:

“No other company in the Internet space has our unique combination of a global brand, the industry’s best talent, innovative technologies and exceptional assets; strengths we believe will help us take advantage of the opportunities we see ahead. I look forward to working together with Frank, John, and the rest of our board to continue the progress we’ve made on our strategy to be the starting point for the most Internet users, a must buy for the most advertisers, and to develop the world’s most open platforms.”

Whatever. Sadly, this won’t keep Yahoo out of the news for all the wrong reasons. But at least one of those reasons won’t be Carl Icahn.

Il cda di Yahoo incassa la fiducia degli azionisti e apre le porte al dissidente Carl Icahn. Jerry Yang è stato confermato al timone della compagnia con l’85,4% dei voti favorevoli, mentre il presidente Roy Bostock ha ottenuto oltre il 79% dei voti. L’assemblea ha anche dato il via libera all’ingresso nel board del finanziere Icahn, che si era battuto a lungo per sfiduciare il cda e aveva poi raggiunto pochi giorni fa un accordo con i vertici in base al quale avrebbe ritirato la sua lista alternativa in cambio di un seggio. L’asse è stato bollato da alcuni azionisti come la «gang dei tre».

Fonte: http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=280592

Does a shareholder proxy battle between the Yahoo board and billionaire investor Icahn impact a nondescript homestay in Coorg ??

Oh yea it does, If you were very observant you would have seen that all images and even the slide show that you see on this blog are from Flickr..a darn good site for photos (I would strongly recommend the site, it is a true Web 2.0 site for photos, the API’s it exposes and features they provide are far far better than the other sites).

Flickr it is owned by Yahoo, all it takes is some guy deciding to do make a change or a cost cutting resulting in reduction in the services levels and .. my website (http://www.bethelestate.com) is impacted !!

I’m already considering alternatives..any suggestions ..?

a_10q_0215

Originally uploaded by samlustgarten

Having Won his Board Seats, Icahn Decides To Skip Yahoo Shareholder Meeting(July 31, 2008 TechCrunch)

Icahn finally obtained the board seat of Yahoo.

I hear that Icahn declared the absence of the shareholders’ meeting of the yahoo however.

Is this a harbinger in which something happens?

O Yahoo vai apontar o investidor Carl Icahn e dois de seus indicados para seu conselho, num acordo que encerra uma batalha pelo comando da empresa e torna menos provável um negócio imediato com a Microsoft .

O acordo, anunciado nesta segunda-feira, surgiu apenas 11 dias antes da assembléia anual dos acionistas, na qual Icahn desejava originalmente substituir todo o conselho por seu indicados e derrubar o presidente-executivo, Jerry Yang.

Mas Icahn não parecia contar com o apoio de proeminentes acionistas do Yahoo, como Bill Miller, administrador do fundo de investimento Legg Mason, que na sexta-feira anunciou apoio ao conselho da companhia. O Legg Mason detém 4,4 por cento do Yahoo, segundo informações prestadas às autoridades regulatórias.

A preocupação deles era a de que, além de uma venda para a Microsoft –que indicou que só está interessada em comprar o serviço de buscas do Yahoo–, Icahn não apresentou planos concretos para reverter a situação da companhia, que vem perdendo participação no mercado de buscas para o Google .

“Pode ser que isso gere alguma mudança positiva. Talvez Icahn consiga promover mais reduções de pessoal e convencer a empresa a vender seus investimentos na Ásia”, disse Jeffrey Lindsay, analista da Sanford C. Bernstein, sobre o acordo.

“No geral, isso parece tornar muito menos provável uma transação com a Microsoft… Temos o que parece ser um compromisso e, em termos gerais, a maioria desses compromissos, e certamente os que envolveram Icahn no passado, reforçaram a situação vigente.”

As ações do Yahoo recuavam 2,8 por cento, para 21,82 dólares, às 12h (horário de Brasília). O preço está bem abaixo da última oferta da Microsoft, no valor de 33 dólares por ação, retirada em maio.

Depois de meses de negociações com a Microsoft, que solaparam a credibilidade de Yang e sua equipe em Wall Street, o acordo com Icahn pode sustentar a posição do Yahoo, pelo futuro próximo.

Fonte:Yahoo