One of Yahoo!'s
Carl Icahn has sold shares of the struggling online giant in each of the past three trading days, enough to take his stake below 5%.
Icahn is typically referred to as a "billionaire activist investor," and he approached Yahoo! last year with the same saber-rattling resolve.
He was initially intrigued by Microsoft's
His quiver was dry of arrows: Microsoft really meant it when it broke things off.
Yet instead of admitting defeat, Icahn was enraged. Unfortunately, he has found himself rooting for other losing ideas along the way.
- He proposed a new slate of Yahoo! directors. That wish didn't materialize.
- He backed an advertising partnership with Google
(NASDAQ:GOOG) , but that idea fell through. - He championed a search partnership with Microsoft. He got that one, but the market hated it, and Yahoo! shares took a hit on the news.
Icahn doesn't always get it right. For every BEA Systems that he gets right -- Oracle
You don't have to hit it out of the park every time: The occasional homer will offset a handful of strikeouts. However, sometimes it just doesn't pay to be an activist. There's nothing wrong with "billionaire passive investor" as a tagline.
The world according to Yahoo!:
