It was about 18 years ago that I attended my first shareholders' meeting (for a local utility). The company had recently eliminated the dividend and many several angry people were in the crowd. It was exciting stuff.
But it was also an exception -- at least based on many other shareholder meetings I've attended (which are mostly formalities).
Despite this, I thought things would be different with the Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) meeting, which happened last week.
Well, I was wrong. Apparently, the meeting was a snooze-fest. In fact, Yahoo!'s shareholders voted overwhelming to keep their board members. This was despite the fact that the company seemed to fumble a juicy $47.5 billion buyout offer from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Interestingly enough, at the board meeting, the directors made it clear that they were thoughtful about the offer but also wanted to get the best deal for shareholders. Moreover, Yahoo! said that it was surprised that Microsoft withdrew its offer.
Of course, Yahoo! has also been the target of activist shareholder, Carl Icahn. Then again, he'll be on the board anyway (where I'm sure he'll make his views widely known).
With Microsoft out of the picture and Yahoo!'s stock price at $19.80 (the buyout offer was for $33), shareholders really have no alternative but to wait a few years and hope that management can improve things. I'm wondering if shareholders are still hoping Microsoft will come back to the table.
But I wouldn't hold my breath. Microsoft can be hard to predict.
More importantly, I think Yahoo! needs some strong medicine, in terms of layoffs, belt-tightening, and closures of product lines. And so far, I haven't seen any tough measures from Yahoo!
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-03-2008 @ 12:56PM
an0n said...
board meeting is ... boring
nice to see 4chan surfers again..
8-03-2008 @ 4:32PM
Darryl said...
I guess the vote is "overwhelming" when you throw out the votes that count against the existing board of directors. The "Gold Proxy" submissions that Icahn presented to YHOO shareholders was withdrawn before the meeting and those who voted the Gold proxy were unable to recast their votes. Who knows how many shareholders were affected by this "oversight".
These shareholders received another proxy to revote, however it was sent out July 28th and most, like me, received it on August 2nd, one day after the meeting.