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Posts Tagged “

Legg Mason

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yahoo

Pro-Microsoft shareholders control at least 29 percent of Yahoo -- does that mean the fight's over?

$30 billion hedge fund Paulson & Co. has released filings to show it owns 3.4 percent of Yahoo shares and intends to support Carl Icahn's bid to replace the company's board. Combined with Icahn's 4.3 percent share, Legg Mason fund manager Bill Miller's 5 percent share and Capital Research fund manager Gordon Crawford's 6 percent share, at least 18 percent of Yahoo's ownership now favors displacing the company's board with directors more amenable to a Microsoft merger. Capital Research funds beyond Crawford's control own another 11 percent of the company, raising that total to at least 29 percent. Shareholder activist Eric Jackson says investors owning another 3.2 million Yahoo shares favor a Microsoft merger as well. CEO Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock can write all the letters they want. There's only one holdup: Getting Microsoft back to the table. (Photo by Simon Grossi)

8:20 AM on Fri May 16 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
3,468 views, 4 comments

Latest by n/a: @David - agree - Icahn is too smart of a value investor to put his money into this powder keg without a put option. more »

yahoo

Large Yahoo shareholders urged Icahn into action

Sending angry letters, going public with a hostile offer — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer played rough with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board during merger negotiations. Yahoo shareholders, dispirited by the failure of those negotiations, want corporate raider Carl Icahn to play rougher. Icahn purchased $1.3 billion worth of Yahoo only after large Yahoo shareholders contacted him and urged him to become involved, a source familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The man controlling the second largest portion of Yahoo shares, portfolio manager Bill Miller of Legg Mason, told the Journal he's glad Icahn joined the fray. "To the extent he can get the parties back to the table I'd be all in favor of that," Miller said. (Photo by AP/Mark Lennihan)

8:16 AM on Wed May 14 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
945 views, 3 comments

Latest by n/a: Yahoo is replacing their own Ads with Google's. Perhaps they should consider replacing their algorithmic search results as well. I've stopped using Yahoo search as well. more »

eric jackson

Yahoo shareholder plots July 3 revolt

Yahoo will hold its annual shareholders' meeting on July 3. Investors angry over how Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang the Yahoo board handled merger negotiations with Microsoft — paging Gordon Crawford and Bill Miller — have until next Thursday to do so by submitting an alternate slate of directors to replace the current board. Wall Street analysts don't expect it to happen, reports the Financial Times. Activist shareholder Eric Jackson, the president of Ironfire Capital, isn't listening to them, however. More »

10:20 AM on Wed May 7 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,419 views, 11 comments

Latest by n/a: interesting that this mtg is only a few days before they announce what will surely be a difficult Q2, marked by more "headwinds". more »

acquisitions"

Second largest Yahoo shareholder calls Ballmer's angry letter a "blunder"

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang refuses to negotiate with Microsoft, but Yahoo's largest shareholders aren't so coy. Take Legg Mason portfolio manager Bill Miller's posturing in today's Wall Street Journal, for example. Miller, responsible for the second largest stake in Yahoo, today called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's weekend ultimatum to the Yahoo board a "blunder." More »

8:00 AM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
1,833 views, 6 comments

iac

Did Bill Miller sell out Barry Diller?

Word now comes that Liberty, former cable baron John Malone's company, has opportunistically paid $340 million for 14 million shares in Barry Diller's IAC, raising its stake to 30 percent. IAC, too, repurchased 6 million shares at the same time. That means that Diller must have begrudgingly consented to the sale; at the same time, he reached an agreement that prevented Malone from taking a bigger stake in the online conglomerate. But who was the seller? More »

3:55 PM on Sat Jan 12 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,014 views, 2 comments