Icahn keeps pressing to oust Yahoo's CEO

Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang is facing increasing shareholder pressure to sell the Internet company he helped found or step aside.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn told the Wall Street Journal that if he wins control of the board, he will seek to oust Yang, who rejected a $47.5 billion takeover bid from Microsoft Corp. last month. Yahoo said today that it will hold the shareholder vote on the board on Aug. 1.

Icahn has amassed support for his proxy fight from hedge- fund manager John Paulson and BP Capital Chairman T. Boone Pickens since Yang, 39, spurned the offer. Yahoo shares closed at $26.15 Tuesday, or 21 percent less than the last bid.

"Jerry Yang being removed from the board is a positive thing for any Yahoo shareholder," said Brian Bolan, director of research at Jackson Securities in Chicago. "With him at the helm, there hasn't been that great of a turnaround."

Yahoo fell 25 cents to close at $26.15 Tuesday. The stock had dropped 32 percent in the year before Microsoft's disclosure of an offer on Feb. 1.

Icahn plans to make a public statement about his concern over Yang and the board's actions, the newspaper said. He didn't return a call from Bloomberg. As of May 15, he owned 10 million Yahoo shares and had options to purchase 49 million more.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo disputed Icahn's assertions in an e-mailed statement Tuesoday, saying they ignore the "clear factual record" and that the sides engaged in extensive discussions. Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw declined to comment.

Before Microsoft's initial offer, Yahoo had reported eight straight quarters of profit declines after losing Internet search traffic to Google Inc. Microsoft had sought to shrink the gap with Google by acquiring Yahoo, a move that would almost triple its share of U.S. Web searches.

Yahoo investors allege the Internet company rejected a $40-a-share offer from Microsoft as early as January 2007, according to court documents tied to a lawsuit over the buyout. Microsoft's $47.5 billion offer, abandoned May 3, amounted to $33 a share.

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