Yahoo Extends Board Nomination Deadline

Yahoo has extended the deadline for nominating directors to its board, giving itself some wiggle room in its efforts to evade Microsoft's $41 billion buyout offer.

Yahoo announced today that it is extending the deadline to nominate candidates for its board of directors from March 14 to 10 days after the date of its annual shareholders’ meeting. But here’s here catch: Yahoo hasn’t actually announced a date for its shareholders’ meeting.

The move is widely seen as a way to give Yahoo more time to explore alternatives to Microsoft’s unsolicited $41 billion takeover bid for the Internet giant. Yahoo rejected the proposal saying it significantly undervalued the company; Microsoft said it wasn’t going to sweeten the deal, and started moves to initiate a “proxy takeover” by nominating its own board of directors for Yahoo, who would presumably vote to approve Microsoft’s takeover proposal.

Microsoft can still nominate its own candidates before the new deadline arrives; however, Yahoo says extending the deadline “will allow Yahoo’s board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest.”

Yahoo held last year’s annual shareholder meeting on June 12; since Delaware law lets companies wait up to 13 months between annual meetings, that puts the latest possible date for Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting in mid-July.

Meanwhile, industry reports have Yahoo continuing to pursue alternatives to a Microsoft takeover.