SAN FRANCISCO — After fending off months of takeover threats by Microsoft, Yahoo directors still will have to fight for their jobs as the company’s own irate shareholders plot a mutiny.
Spurred by widespread criticism about how Yahoo’s board responded to Microsoft’s sweetened offer of $47.5 billion, an activist shareholder is trying to recruit an alternate slate of directors to present at Yahoo’s annual meeting July 3.
“We are hoping to turn that (meeting) into ‘Independence Day’ for Yahoo’s shareholders,” said Eric Jackson, president of Ironfire Capital.
The specter of a hostile takeover evaporated over the weekend when Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer withdrew a 3-month-old offer after concluding he had reached an impasse with Yahoo’s board over a mutually acceptable sales price.
Ballmer had orally offered to pay $33 per share, or $47.5 billion, up from an initial bid valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share. At the time the negotiations collapsed, the value of Microsoft’s original offer had fallen to $42.3 billion, or $29.40 per share, because half the deal was supposed to be financed with Microsoft’s declining stock.
Yahoo’s board wanted $37 per share.
