Submitted by Kristan Rivers05.26.2008
This prediction is closed and has been judged.
Carl Icahn has put forward a slate of alternate director candidates for Yahoo's board in his proxy fight against Yahoo.
"Facing a battle for its board, Yahoo on Thursday pushed back its annual meeting until the end of July and announced the resignation of a board member.
The annual meeting, during which the entire board is up for re-election, had been scheduled for July 3. Yahoo did not yet set a particular date for the annual meeting but said that it will be around the end of July."
This is a prediction that Carl Icahn's attempt to replace Yahoo's current board with those more friendly to a Microsoft merger will ultimately succeed.
In order to judge this prediction favorably, at least five of Mr. Icahn's proposed or preferred candidates must be voted in as members of Yahoo's board at the late-July shareholders meeting. Bets will close on July 23, 2008, and the prediction will be judged after the shareholder meeting has occurred, unless the currently unscheduled meeting happens earlier than the closing date.
(Ed. note: Some minor word edits have been made by The Standard to clarify the prediction's rules.)
Related Articles and Predictions:
News: Microsoft says it would deal with new Yahoo board
Prediction: Jerry Yang ousted as CEO of Yahoo!
Prediction: Sue Decker to become the next Yahoo! CEO
Prediction Statistics
| Betting Closes: | Jul 23 2008 | Current Consensus: | 8.32% | Total Bets: | 66 |
| Today's Change: | -5.87% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 63.41% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 7.24% |
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Looks like Carl might be warming up to Jerry & Co:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080616/icahn_yahoo.html
The AP today has a story that Microsoft Corp. threw its weight behind investor Carl Icahn's effort to oust Yahoo Inc.'s board next month, saying Monday that a successful rebellion would encourage the software maker to renew its takeover bid for Yahoo or negotiate another multibillion-dollar deal. ... Investors reacted enthusiastically, as Yahoo shares soared $2.54, or 11.9 percent, to $23.89 in Monday afternoon's trading.
The tide is turning against Yang and current board
Man, David, no kidding. That changes the equation immensely.
After the initial vocal support, it seems that the slience is deafening. Even the YHOO stock is languishing now due to the lack of news.
It is beginning to look like a "play-chicken" scenario. Who will budge? Large investors are not willing to adopt Icahn's proposal outright (due to fear that it will negatively impact YHOO operations and further instability). Instead, the hybrid scenario seem most likely now with Icahn getting 4 seats out of 9 total to foster organic growth than a full sale. At 4 seats, the judgement for this prediction will be UNFAVORABLE.
Reference articles:
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080703/yahoo-might-offer-carl-icahn-two-sea...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25212429/
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080709/yahoo.html?.v=1
A conditional no-sale at price below $33/share in order to garner support for Icahn will essentially make this a tough battle for him.
Yahoo's stockholder meeting takes place on August 1. Can the closing date be pushed to 31st July?
@Shiv, I think closing a prediction about a week from activity prevents last minute sniping given that judgement is not as real time as actual news which allows last minute flipflopping for some lucky blokes. I recommend not changing the closing date.
The prediction should be closed beforehand only if it can unexpectedly come to a conclusion before the judgment day - for example the jailbreaking prediction should have been closed on 11 July. But something like this can only be resolved at a fixed time and event i.e. the stockholder meeting. What I'm suggesting still closes the prediction before the event.
Basically, in my opinion,
>If an event is definitely happening, and the judgment rests upon what happens therein, the prediction should be closed just before the event to avoid unnecessarily freezing your cash. However,
>If the judgment rests only upon the happening of an unsure event within a time-frame (stock price passes $50, Microsoft buys Apple, etc) then the closing date should be before the time-frame. This will prevent sniping. In such cases, though, your cash will be frozen.
Proxy War over ... Legg Mason votes for current board
Also covered by Standard ... http://thestandard.com/news/2008/07/18/major-investor-back-yahoo-board
Done Deal: NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- (YHOO 22.45, +0.01, +0.0%) said Monday it reached an agreement with shareholder Carl Icahn to settle the pending proxy contest related to the upcoming shareholders meeting. Under the terms of the deal, eight members of Yahoo's current board will stand for re-election at the 2008 annual meeting: Roy Bostock, Ronald Burkle, Eric Hippeau, Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern, Mary Agnes Wilderotter, Gary Wilson and Jerry Yang. In view of the settlement agreement with Icahn, and the termination of the proxy contest, Yahoo said Robert Kotick has decided not to stand for re-election to the board at the 2008 annual meeting. After the annual meeting, the Yahoo board will be expanded to 11 members. Icahn will be appointed to the board and the remaining two seats will be filled by the board upon the recommendation of its nominating and governance committee. In addition, Icahn, who owns about 5% on Yahoo common shares, agreed to withdraw his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting and to vote his Yahoo shares in support of the board's nominees.
Yep. This is indeed done. Icahn will only get 3 seats (including himself). Judgement should be rendered as UNFAVORABLE.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeRNaG9DUGg4&refer=h...
http://dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/21/icahn-joining-yaho...
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200807210803DOWJONES...
http://www.reuters.com/article/innovationNews/idUSN2034966920080721
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/07/21/ap5234274.html
Not sure why the Judge Early link is not available to alert TIS on this.
Thanks for flagging this, Eric. @Kuan - when a user flags a prediction, the link is removed until we review the content a user has submitted as proof. If it checks out, we close it. If it doesn't, we toggle the link back so it is back on the site.
@Eric, removing the link on first submission might be somewhat limiting. What if the submitted link was not strong enough for judgement and subsequently there exists additional updates that may proof the case? Having the ability for multiple submission may ease TIS effort to render judgement. Just trying to help out, that's all :)
I hear you, although my concern is that when our market volume increases, receiving 20 alert emails could be difficult to wade through.
Also, we're looking into rewarding approved flags with Standard Dollars, say S$20,0000.
I am not sure what is the trend on flagging predictions for judgement. Does it occur frequently enough to be unmanageable after volume scales up (if allows for mulitple flagging)? Also, rewarding judgement flags sounds nice. Since first submission disables the link, how will you handle abuse?
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