Icahn Writes Open Letter To Yahoo

Carl Icahn, eager to oust the Yahoo board over its handling of the Microsoft bid, has written a stinging open letter to the board about their actions.

Investor Carl Icahn isn’t a happy man. The billionaire investor has his sights set on ousting the Yahoo board over their handling of the Microsoft acquisition offer. His latest strategy has been to write to the current chairman, Roy Bostock, attacking him over the so-called “poison pill” idea the board apparently inaugurated as a deterrent to a Microsoft takeover.

The poison pill strategy would effectively encourage employees not to work as hard, so they could be fired and take advantage of a generous severance package. The package would include up to two years salary and benefits, as well as $15,000 of outplacement expenses, and accelerated vesting of stock options and restricted stock units. The employee would also be able to resign with “good reason” within a two year window of someone else taking control of Yahoo.

Icahn says this plan was only discovered during discovery, and was not openly divulged by the current board.

"Why don’t you, now that you have the opportunity, remove the ‘poison pill’ severance plan that I find to be ridiculous and thereby remove a major obstacle to a Microsoft acquisition?" Icahn asked Bostock in his open letter.

"In my opinion, Microsoft does not believe you will ever sell the entire company on a friendly basis.So why don’t you stop dancing around the subject and publicly offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375 per share and promise to cooperate completely?"