Internet & Media

The shareholder approval ratings for Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock plunged Tuesday after Yahoo released new results that corrected a vote transmission error.

Shareholders unhappy with board members withheld their votes in the Friday election. In Yahoo's official voting tally released Friday, 14.6 percent of votes for Yang and 20.5 percent for Bostock were withheld.

But in the corrected results, Yang's withhold percentage rose to 33.7 percent and Bostock's to 39.6 percent, Yahoo said.

Update 2:09 p.m. PDT: Quantitatively, the change means nothing: "These errors did not … Read more

Yahoo said it plans to update a shareholder vote results after an error in transmission meant some dissatisfaction with Yahoo management wasn't reflected in Friday's board member election figures.

Capital Research Global Investors, suspecting an error in the Yahoo vote tally, said on Monday that it requested that the firm it uses to transmit the votes to Yahoo check its work to see if there was an error. On Tuesday, that firm, Broadridge Financial Solutions, said it found a "truncation error" that underreported how many votes were withheld for some board members.

Withholding votes in a … Read more

Update at 3:08 p.m. PDT, with Carl Icahn's appointment to the board and closing stock price.

The results are in on the re-election of Yahoo's directors, and the damage is not as bad as last year. No one received more than a 22.1 percent withhold vote, compared with a substantially higher 34 percent last year, according to the company.

Shareholders withhold votes to re-elect directors as a means to send a message of investor dissatisfaction to a company and its board.

Here's how each director stacked up on their re-election:

Roy Bostock, chairman, a … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Yahoo stuck to its script Friday, arguing at its annual shareholder meeting that it's poised for greater financial success, but at least some shareholders left unsatisfied with the performance by Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock.

"I like Jerry, but I think a new CEO is needed," said Eric Jackson of Ironfire Capital, which controls 3.2 million Yahoo shares, in an interview after the two-hour meeting here wound down. And that's not all--he also wants to see board members Bostock, Eric Hippeau, Arthur Kern, and Ron Burkle step down. And … Read more

Time Warner has reportedly objected to the appointment of former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller to Yahoo's board of directors, according to Techcrunch.

Miller was one of three potential new board members at Yahoo as the company moves to quell shareholder angst and avoid trouble with investor Carl Icahn. After Friday's shareholder meeting, Icahn is scheduled to take one slot on Yahoo's board then help select two others by August 15. Yahoo had asked that Miller, who is a founding partner of investment firm Velocity Interactive Group, step in.

Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes had initially approved the … Read more

Updated 1:51 p.m. PDT: Adds Microsoft statement and some investor comments from the presentation.

Yahoo investors came to the annual shareholders meeting Friday looking for answers on the failed bid by Microsoft.

And while Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, speaking early during the meeting, covered a fair amount of ground on the long-running melodrama of Microsoft's buyout bid and subsequent developments, there were two things missing from his presentation.

One, how the company came to the conclusion that a $33 a share Microsoft buyout offer wasn't rich enough and why a counter of $37 a share was … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The Yahoo shareholders meeting here has commenced and adjourned. And CEO Jerry Yang and his board did end up getting an earful about the company's share price and its handling of Microsoft's attempted acquisition.

I blogged live from the meeting. We heard presentations from Yang, Chairman Roy Bostock, President Sue Decker, and CFO Blake Jorgensen, and then questions from shareholders. Here is a record of the live blog.

9:59 a.m. PDT: Just before the meeting is set to begin, the Fairmont Hotel ballroom is more empty than full. Perhaps Yahoo planned this when … Read more

Carl Icahn may be ducking the spotlight at Yahoo's shareholder meeting Friday, but we'll probably hear who else shares his dissatisfaction with the Internet company's recent share price.

Any shareholder disgruntled with how Jerry Yang and colleagues handled Microsoft's attempted acquisition may pipe up at the meeting. CNET News plans live-blog reporting and video coverage for the shareholder meeting in San Jose, Calif.

Most expect Yang to come in for the latest in a long series of serious criticisms. The company's stock closed at $19.18 the day before Microsoft launched its attempt to acquire Yahoo, … Read more

How about a little sympathy here for Carl Icahn? It's not easy being a billionaire activist investor.

That's the overall flavor of two blog postings from Icahn on Thursday in which he criticized The Wall Street Journal for an unflattering portrait of his style and explained why he's not attending Yahoo's shareholders meeting Friday.

After a very high-profile proxy fight that resulted in Icahn and two allies winning seats on Yahoo's board, Icahn now thinks a media circus at the Yahoo meeting wouldn't be a constructive way to achieve his ends.

"The proxy … Read more