Every four years, Yahoo experiences the same "rebellion" that happens to the United States when presidential elections come. Last Thursday, Starboard Value, an activist investor, launched an expected mutiny that aims to overthrow the entire board of the company including its CEO Marissa Mayer.
The investor's action was announced in a letter to the board. This move marks the start of the fight for control of the search giant that could go up to summer this year. It is the third coup attempt at the Sunnyvale, CA-based company initiated by various shareholders who are fed up with the unsuccessful efforts of different management teams to revive the firm's sluggish revenues.
Two previous rebellions have occurred in 2008 and 2012 which enabled dissident shareholders to capture a number of board seats. These dissensions also led to the resignation of Scott Thompson and Jerry Yan, previous CEOs of the tech giant.
Starboard made good its threat of unseating the entire Yahoo board by running nine candidates which could take over all the nine incumbent directors. The present board has no recourse but to defend itself while trying to explore a deal that will sell its core business.
Starboard's slate includes Jeffrey Smith, a former technology banker at Deutsche Bank and a former executive of NBC Universal. Smith is Starboard's chief executive and he provides the biggest challenge to the sitting board.
"We have been extremely disappointed with Yahoo's dismal financial performance, poor management execution, egregious compensation and hiring practices, and general lack of accountability," wrote Jeffrey Smith in a company letter he sent to the board on Thursday.
According to information from FactSet Research Systems, Inc., only around 30 companies have experienced their entire board ousted as a result of coup attempts of activist investors and shareholders. Pretty soon, we will be able to tell if Yahoo will become one of the statistics.
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