An outspoken Yahoo Inc shareholder said on Monday he considers former Yahoo executives Ross Levinsohn and Jacqueline Reses as potential replacements for Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer as the internet company comes under pressure to change strategic direction.
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“Requiring shareholders to continue to wait for definitive action for another year or more – and extending the tenure of senior management – while the company evaluates this reverse-spin is simply unacceptable”, Canyon Capital wrote in its letter.
Mayer had hoped to buy more time with the Alibaba spinoff, which had been set as tax-free shelter for Yahoo’s 384 million shares in the Chinese company.
That’s the whole point of a 99-page presentation hedge fund manager Eric Jackson just submitted to Yahoo’s board. She gave birth to twin girls Thursday, the day after unveiling plans to hatch a new company to control Yahoo’s Internet business.
Starboard hasn’t commented publicly on the plan Yahoo unveiled last week, and has not responded to our request for comment.
The details of the reorganization are supposed to be announced next month when the Sunnyvale, California, company releases its fourth-quarter earnings.
Jackson is among the growing list of Yahoo shareholders who are voicing their frustration with Mayer and calling for a different path than the one Yahoo recently laid out. She and her husband, Zachary Bogue, have a 3-year-old son, Macallister. “I think the basic strategy that he was advocating was in hindsight the right strategy”, Jackson said. SpingOwl has not revealed the size of its stake in Yahoo.
SpringOwl distributed a presentation arguing that the company should replace Mayer and slash costs by eliminating some 9,000 positions.
Yahoo scrapped the Alibaba spinoff after another shareholder, Starboard Value, threatened an attempt to overthrow the board if the company stuck to that plan.
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it too many times, Marissa Mayer is not having a great time running things over at Yahoo (YHOO).
“The market already assigns significant negative value to the company’s mature core operating business and assets and, in our view, this delay will inevitably cause further decline in value”, Canyon said in its letter.
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Canyon’s call to sell the business echoes a recent push by activist investor Starboard, which last month urged Yahoo to halt its Alibaba spinoff and find a buyer for the Internet business. Starboard owns less than a 1 percent stake.
