Yahoo delays board election to resist Microsoft takeover
Yahoo has extended a deadline for nominating candidates to its board to give it more time to fight off a Microsoft takeover.
Yahoo is reportedly considering other deals and talking with Time Warner about a joint venture with AOL.
Yahoo rejected Microsoft's $45 billion offer of Feb. 1 as too low. Microsoft still hopes to complete the deal, and one way would be trying to elect its supporters to the Yahoo board.
The previous deadline for nominating board members was March 14. Now it will be 10 days after Yahoo announces the date of its shareholders meeting.
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Wanting to explore its options to a takeover by Microsoft, Yahoo took a step today to give it time to do just that.
The Internet portal said it is extending the deadline for nominating directors to its board. Previously, such nominations were due March 14. Now Yahoo will accept them until 10 days following the announcement of the date of its annual meeting, and pointedly did not set a date for that meeting.
The nomination process is important, because Microsoft - after having its buyout offer rejected by Yahoo - is threatening to nominate its own slate of directors to Yahoo's board who would presumably agree to the takeover.
Yahoo took the step to remove the distraction of a so-called proxy contest for control of its board and allow it to weigh other options, CEO Jerry Yang said in an email to employees sent this morning.
'In light of the current circumstances, this change removes an imminent deadline. Microsoft, of course, could still choose to name directors, but our objective here is to enable our board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders,' Yang said.
Yahoo has reportedly been in talks with Time Warner about creating some kind of combination with the media company's AOL unit.
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