carl icahn

Carl Icahn just bought another 6.8 million shares of Yahoo this week bringing his share of Yahoo to just under 5%.
He paid around $9.87, which is less than 1/3 of what he paid last year. He now controls 3 seats on the board and is said to be active in the role of looking for Jerry Yang’s replacement.
What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean that they have found a CEO replacement (if so, it would be insider trading since the news isn’t public). But, what it does mean is that Icahn is bullish that their selection pool for the CEO process is strong and he knows the news will push the stock price higher. With such a down economy, their chances of finding powerful talent to take over the position is much greater. Yahoo shares will be jumping up Monday following Icahn’s speculative purchase and possibly even greater later in the week if they find the replacement.

yahoo

Brian Caulfield at Forbes asked Yahoo employees what they believed have been the biggest missteps made by the company.
Here are their top 5 answers:
- 1. Aborted projects. Too much cash has been wasted on projects that have been started only to be scrapped a short time later.
- 2. Not buying Google. Then-CEO Terry Semel had a chance to purchase Google for around $5 billion and walked.
- 3. Hiring Terry Semel. The ex-Warner Bros. exec had trouble leading the company out of the tech bust. See #2.
- 4. Not buying DoubleClick. Instead of picking up the display ad giant, Yahoo snoozed while Google jumped in and bought the company in April ‘07.
- 5. Not selling to Microsoft. Was there any doubt at what #5 would be? After Yang didn’t sell, Carl Icahn forced his way into 3 seats on the board and now Jerry’s outta there.
Indecisiveness and lack of direction are common themes here.
Barring a spectactular comeback, Yahoo will be a popular “how not to run your company” case study at business schools for a couple years to come.

Why Yahoo Is A Good Buy Right Now