Search engine Yahoo announced today the postponement of a looming showdown for control of its board, giving itself more time to prepare a defense - or negotiate a sale to Microsoft that would cause activist investor Carl Icahn to call off the mutiny. The showdown pitting the slumping Internet pioneer"s board against Icahn and other unhappy shareholders was supposed to come to a head at the Sunnyvale-based company"s July 3 annual meeting, but Yahoo is dragging out the drama by pushing the meeting back to an undetermined date in late July, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The postponement of Yahoo"s annual meeting "raises a lot of interesting questions," said Claudia Allen, a Chicago lawyer specializing in corporate governance issues. "It could be that they are exploring some other potential transactions, with the most likely one being some sort of deal with Microsoft that satisfies Mr. Icahn."