After the closing bell today, billionaire investor Carl Icahn made it clear (in an interview with the Wall St Journal), that he is pursuing his battle for control of Yahoo's board, with the clear intention of removing Jerry Yang as CEO of the company.Icahn and numerous colleagues have been accumulating Yahoo stock over the past few weeks.
Yang and company have spent the better part of the last two months positioning Yahoo! (NasdaqGS: YHOO) to try and repel any further bids from Microsoft (NasdaqGS: MSFT).
There were mixed feeling among employees and stockholders on both sides of the latest Microsoft / Yahoo chapter, although most felt it was a 'done deal' from the start because of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's outright tenacity as well as the significant premium that Microsoft was offering to Yahoo! shareholders.
Icahn is no stranger to the tech sector waters. As recently as April of this year, Motorola made a deal with Icahn.
Yang appears to truly believe he can build on Yahoo's platform and deliver value for Yahoo's shareholders having recently put forth a new 3-year plan. Yahoo! has also seen numerous internal changes in the past few months and the company has continued to roll out new products along with enhancements to existing ones.
Yahoo! has now moved their annual shareholder meeting to August 1st. While Microsoft publicly is showing significantly less interest, there's little doubt that numerous conversations are once again being held behind closed doors.