No Holds Barred Proxy Fight

Well, it looks like I will get to see a real live proxy fight up close. (Well, as close as the web will get me.) Carl Icahn has sent a letter to the Yahoo! Board about this actions and disappointment. Icahn has already bought 59M shares of Y! stock and wants to buy $2.5B -- then sell it to Microsoft for a quick buck.

Icahn is busy messing around with Motorola. He owns most of the debt at XO -- and won't allow a re-finance which would actually help XO. I understand that he is a Corporate Raider looking to make big buck as fast as possible, but how about helping America out, Carl? By screwing every company you touch, you aren't helping anyone but yourself.

Your kind has not helped the economy one bit. Have you ever actually built anything? Or do you just use companies as Arbitrage pawns for your hedge fund games?

At Wikipedia, these are the companies that Icahn has a hand in: "He has taken substantial or controlling positions in various corporations including: RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner and Motorola." How many of those companies are doing well or still exist?

Icahn actually states that Microsoft could do more with Yahoo: "I and many of your shareholders strongly believe that a combination between Yahoo and Microsoft would form a dynamic company and more importantly would be a force strong enough to compete with Google on the Internet." Ha! Microsoft search, Ask.com, Infoseek, AltaVista, et al have all tried to make a dent, but most couldn't even make a dent in Yahoo let alone Google.

One reason: Google is simple and clean. Y! and MSN are cluttered portals with screaming ads. Another reason: Google is a verb. Yahoo never reached that status even when they were buying big media advertising.

Icahn's proposed board is a collection of pirates that have never run anything more than hedge funds. The exception is Mark Cuban, who made his fortune selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo before the bubble burst -- or Cuban would just be a footnote in history. So basically the new board will come in, buy up stock, sell it to MS at a premium, bank the mullah, and then watch Y! disappear. Sad.