It looks like we can finally put the Carl Icahn vs. Yahoo fight behind us. As part of the settlement between the two, Icahn was given three seats on Yahoo’s board – one for himself and another two for new members to be appointed by Icahn. After Time Warner denied Icahn’s favorite appointee Jon Miller a seat on the board because of a non-compete clause in his old AOL contract, Icahn and Yahoo finally settled on former Viacom president and CEO Frank J. Biondi and former Nextel CEO John H. Chapple.
No Surprises
These appointments do not come as a surprise, but it is good to see that we can finally put a coda behind this affair. With Biondi and Chapple, Yahoo gains two very capable and experienced new board members and it will be interesting to see if they can influence the future of Yahoo in a positive way, or if the contentious debate over the future of Yahoo in the last few months has left the board dysfunctional.
The last time Icahn gained seats on the board of a major company was in his fight with Motorola. For the Motorola stockholders, this has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, as the stock has continued its downward trend ever since. For Yahoo’s stockholders it remains to be seen if Icahn and his appointees can turn the fortunes of Yahoo (or at least its stockholders) around.
What’s Next?
With an additional media and a mobile executive on its board, it would be easy to speculate that Yahoo is going to continue pushing into the mobile and content space. Obviously, none of the appointees come from a search company, which might leave some to speculate that Yahoo might still sell off its search business in the future.
