[mj]

Call it the "Carl Icahn Treatment."


After news surfaced on Tuesday that the billionaire activist investor would be waging a proxy fight over Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), new reports announced that Icahn has lined up a slate of 10 directors to replace the web portal's board and bring Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) back to the table.


There's a hitch though. Yahoo! has set a Thursday deadline for submitting candidates to oppose its board at the company's July 3 annual meeting. Wednesday's report was first published on the Wall Street Journal's website.
Icahn is hoping to restart Yahoo!'s failed negotiations with Microsoft, which fell apart less than two weeks ago. O ther activists had thought about waging a proxy battle, but gave up when they didn't feel confident Microsoft would back them. Yahoo! is a perfect opportunity for Icahn, who specializes in shaking up companies with questionable management. He typically takes a minority stake and agitates for change, often getting board representation, as was the case at Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) and ImClone (nasdaq: IMCL - news - people ).


The fight could get ugly--just look what's happened since he moved on Motorola.
At Yahoo! Icahn has reportedly accumulated 50 million, or about 2% of the company's shares in order to position himself to capitalize on investor discontent for turning down Microsoft Chief Executive Seve Ballmer's very public $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, offer. The software company gave up after Yang and the board insisted on at least $37.

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/0...markets12.html


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