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Carl Icahn and Bruce Willis; both on the same boat

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:November 29, 2008


Guys like this always puzzle me. I remember a quote from Bruce Willis, who, after making a dub movie, Hudson Hawk, said, after critics trashed him, ” who cares, I have enough money now, to skip rocks in the river for the rest of my life.”

Then, he goes back in the biz and continues. Were it me, I would have hit the banks, grabbed a margarita, read a dozen books, cruised, toured the Riviera, lived and loved life.
Bored Rooms are boring, filled with “Yes Men” scratching their way to the top over the backs of others. When i$ enough enough$.

Icahn will someday be like the CEO of Monster – one day cutting a deal, next day at room temperature. What a tragedy.

Yahoo is looking for a new chief executive after co-founder Jerry Yang said he will step down as soon as the board finds a successor. Activist investor Carl Icahn has bought up close to 7 million additional shares of the Internet company, according to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Carl Icahn, a billionaire hedge-fund manager has been among the loudest voices arguing for a new direction at Yahoo’s board this summer after it rejected a deal with Microsoft, snapped up about 6.8 million shares for an average of $9.92 each in three batches worth $67 million of shares during three days this week, bringing his total stake to 75.6 million, or nearly 5.5 percent of the company.

As i see, lets be very clear. Icahn need the MS deal to make $$$ on the sale. He has absolutely no interest in Yahoo or the company’s long term survival. His only interest is in himself. He does not care a single bit about Yahoo … just his wallet.

Larry Dignan added in his blog on zdnet , Carl Icahn says he likes Jerry Yang and notes the former Yahoo CEO is a “charismatic guy,” but Yahoo needs to do a Microsoft search deal since the company can’t afford to fight Google.

Icahn’s remarks, made in an interview with Barron’s (subscription required) a few days after he added to his Yahoo stake, doesn’t reveal anything entirely new, but does indicate that full-blown Microsoft acquisition is off the table.

Whereas Davemanuel says in his blog Here is a company that had a CEO (Jerry Yang) who wanted to play hardball with Microsoft, and ended up losing (badly). Yang, who used to be the toast of Silicon Valley, quit as CEO after it became pretty obvious that he had lost the trust and confidence of shareholders.

Here is a company that doesn’t seem to have any direction right now after being rejected by both Microsoft AND Google. The company is a terrific brand, but doesn’t seem to really know what it wants to be. As members of the management team try to figure this out, Google continues to leave the company in the dust, and Yahoo! becomes less relevant by the day.

Icahn spent $67 million to buy 6,778,804 shares for an average price of $9.92. The purchases brought his holdings to 75,575,125 shares, or about 6% of the company’s shares outstanding. The stocks rallied 93 cents, or 9 percent, to $11.51 in the shortened trading session. Icahn now holds 5.5 percent stake in Yahoo which is about $870 million based on Friday closing price. He had started buying Yahoo shares in spring when Yahoo was still in talks with Microsoft about a possible merger between the two companies. After the deal fell through and Jerry Yang rejected Microsoft, Icahn tried to oust Yang and get the two sides back to the bargaining table. After Microsoft declared that it was no longer interested in buying Yahoo, except for snapping up its search business, Icahn has decided to move in further.

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  • It fascinates me to know of men that, besides their age and success continuously delves into different (and surprising) business ventures. I don't find them weird, but rather they earned my respect, because they believe that they have room to grow. Whoever said that you can't teach old dogs new tricks is wrong.
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