Dan Loeb has resigned from the board of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), and his firm Third Point is selling back 40 million shares of common stock to the company. The search giant paid $29.11 per share for the stock. Shares fell as much as 3 percent after the news was announced.
Dan Loeb resigns from Yahoo’s board
In addition to Dan Loeb’s resignation, Harry Wilson and Michael Wolf will also resign their positions on the company’s board. All three were nominated by Third Point, and their resignations go into effect July 31. The board of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) will remain at seven members after their resignations. Max Levchin will keep his position on the board. He was appointed under an agreement between the board and Third Point.
After selling off 40 million shares of Yahoo, Third Point will own about 20 million shares, which amount to less than 2 percent of the company’s outstanding stock. The shares repurchased from Third Point fall under the previously announced plan for Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) to buy back $1.9 billion in stock. After completing the purchase, there will be about $700 million left under the $5 billion total repurchase authorization that was announced last year.
A history of Dan Loeb and Yahoo
Loeb, Wolf and Wilson all joined Yahoo’s board in May 2012 at the end of a proxy battle between Third Point and Yahoo’s previous board. Dan Loeb bought a 5 percent stake in Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in fall 2011 and then started filing letters with the Securities and Exchange Commission making the case for new leadership at the company.
He also said that the company should unlock the value of some of its Asian assets, like its stake in Alibaba. In the same month Dan Loeb joined the company’s board, it started negotiations to sell some of its stake in the company. Loeb was also responsible for the ouster of former Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson, whose CV indicated that he held a computer science degree even though he did not.
Wolf took on the job of finding a new CEO, who ended up being current CEO Marissa Mayer.
