SiliconBeat

Yahoo said today it has amended a controversial employee severance agreement it adopted last February less than two weeks after Microsoft made its unsolicited offer to buy the Internet giant, according to a regulatory filing. The severance program guaranteed a mix of cash and stock payments to all 13,800 Yahoo employees if they were fired or quit after being reassigned to a new job within two years after a Microsoft takeover.

The number of months of severance that were to be paid under the plan were called Read the rest of this entry »

Carl Icahn placed a bet on Advanced Micro Devices in the third quarter, acquiring 1.6 million shares of the Sunnyvale chip maker, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday in which his investment company, Icahn Capital, periodically details its holdings.

The stake was valued at Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s another dispatch from Mercury News reporter Elise Ackerman, who has been covering the Yahoo saga for us. She’s been examining some materials related to the shareholder litigation brought about regarding Microsoft’s proposed takeover:

Now that the Yahoo shareholder meeting is over and Carl Icahn has been appointed to Yahoo’s board of directors he will be working to rescind severance plans adopted by the board’s compensation committee on February 12 , 2008.

According to a declaration filed in Delaware Court by John Fox, a veteran Silicon Valley employment attorney, the plans were highly unusual. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s filings in the Yahoo saga include a hit piece on Carl Icahn’s prowess as an investor. It kicks off with the prominently featured graphic we show here, and then details information related to his involvement with 15 companies over the last couple of years, including what has happened to the stock price of each since Icahn began his involvement. In case you’re wondering, in the case of all but three, the stocks lost value, which Yahoo kindly helps you tally with the use of big bold arrows.

We can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of this Read the rest of this entry »

The Yahoo drama just heated up yet again. Shortly after midnight EDT, Yahoo released “confirmation” that it had rejected a joint proposal from Microsoft and Carl Icahn proposing a “complex restructuring” of the company that would leave Microsoft owning Yahoo’s search business and immediately replace the current Yahoo board with Icahn’s proposed slate of directors.

The plan was evidently given Friday evening to Yahoo’s board, which “was given less than 24 hours Read the rest of this entry »

Shareholder activist and current Yahoo nemesis Carl Icahn felt it necessary to file his blog post of this morning with the SEC as an attachment to his proxy filing offering a rival slate of nominees to serve on Yahoo’s board of directors. If his proxy fight with Yahoo fails, he may at least have a nice list of subscribers to his blog.

Regarding Your Comments on Yahoo

Posted by Carl Icahn June 27, 2008: 10:16 AM

Many of you have been asking me about Yahoo. Please remember I am in the middle of a proxy fight. A proxy fight involves a complicated process of SEC approvals, federal securities laws, filing requirements and a great deal of time and money.

At this time, due to SEC regulations, I do not intend to post your comments regarding the proxy fight. However, I am planning to give you my views about Yahoo and its management shortly. If you wish to be informed I invite you to subscribe. Stay tuned.

Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock explained why they found their company’s new agreement with Google “so exciting” in a letter to shareholders Wednesday. But the bottom line of the communication was to urge them to vote AGAINST the dissident slate of directors being nominated by Carl Icahn. We quote herewith: Read the rest of this entry »

Carl Icahn — shareholder activist or corporate raider, you decide — sent out a variation of his cage-rattling letters to the board of Motorola the same day it made its “much delayed and long overdue” (his characterization, not ours) announcement that it would spin off its mobile devices division into a separate company.

The letter, contained in a filing his Icahn Associates made with the SEC today, expresses”concerns about the speed and manner in which a new management team is selected for the Mobile Devices business and the separation transaction is consummated. Time is of the essence and decisive action is required,” Icahn wrote.

He then asks some questions, two of which seem a bit rhetorical: Read the rest of this entry »