A few days ago, I penned a posting asking that, at the end of the day, do proxy fights matter?
I pointed to a new Wharton School of Business report that dumps cold water on the enthusiasm of shareholder activists who have had a field day this past proxy season.
One of their examples: the nasty battles over Yahoo among Microsoft, Carl Ichan and the Yahoo management. As Lawrence Hrebriniak, a Wharton management professor, puts it: “This proxy fight was disruptive to Yahoo management and part of it was game playing between billionaires.”
Well, last Friday, Yahoo held its annual meeting and it looks like Hrebriniak has been vindicated. All of that sound and fury seems to have been for nothing.
Yahoo Chairman, Roy Bostock, was endorsed by a 79.5 percent shareholder vote. Embattled CEO, Jerry Yang, got an 85.4 percent endorsement. That’s down from 90 percent last year, but hey, with grades this good who’s to complain?
Ichan, after all that wailing, gets a seat on the board along with two compadres.
Microsoft’s takeover offer remains withdrawn.
True, Yang remains under a microscope and Microsoft could come roaring back. The real winners in all of this, however, are the newspapers who ran those dramatic advertisements, paper companies and public relations firms. And course we in the media who love a good dust-up to bring some excitement to our otherwise miserable lives.
