SEO Blog

Last week I wrote about an institution or massive investor that was perceived to be buying blocks of Yahoo! shares. My source was unable to put his (or her) finger on exactly who that person or organization was but he/she was certain the buying fit a pattern that spelled big-pockets and suggested even bigger plans. Someone or some thing’s buying was keeping Yahoo! shares above the $25 mark, far higher than observers expected after Microsoft bailed on its acquisition attempt.

Guess what… Yahoo!’s back in play.

Today legendary activist investor, Carl Icahn, announced he had purchased approximately 3% of Yahoo!’s shares in a bid to take over the company. He has been buying shares for the past few weeks, apparently in the hopes of getting Microsoft back to the negotiating table. Icahn declared his stock purchases today because tomorrow is the deadline for nominating names to stand for Yahoo!’s Board of Directors at the company’s Annual General Meeting next month.

Icahn is taking an enormous gamble as there has been no signals from Microsoft it is interested in reopening negotiations with Yahoo!, having instead re-adopted the “Go it alone in search” stance. He has been known to take such gambles in the past, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.

Here’s an important tip about Carl Icahn. Icahn rarely buys with the intention of sticking around for the long-haul. Icahn is into buying big things, splitting them into smaller things and selling those smaller things as quickly as he can. Such is the life of a corporate raider, which is exactly how Carl Icahn does business.

Icahn has been a thorn in the sides of CEOs and Boards of Directors from Wall St. to the Silicon Valley over the years, most recently tangling with Richard Parsons and the Board at Time Warner in a bid to break the media giant into component pieces. As a major shareholder in the IAC/Interactive Group, the owner of Ask.com, Icahn was said to be instrumental in CEO Barry Diller’s decision to break the company into five separate units.

Like everyone else, Icahn knows that the Yahoo! - Google advertising deal poisoned Microsoft’s taste for Yahoo!. Icahn very likely sees a great deal of value in various aspects of Yahoo!’s multiple business ventures though it is not likely he sees a great deal of value in Yahoo! as a complete company. His sudden interest in Yahoo! could spell what many would consider the worst outcome for the search marketing community, the break-up of Yahoo!