By Yi-Wyn Yen
The Carl Icahn-Roy Bostock slap down continues.
The activist investor and Yahoo chairman exchanged their second round of harshly-worded statements this week.
Icahn offered his views on how Bostock should handle negotiations with Microsoft (MSFT) in a letter he made public to the Wall Street Journal Friday. Icahn suggested that Bostock (YHOO) offer to sell Yahoo at $34.375 a share to Microsoft, get rid of Jerry Yang as CEO, and replace its severance plan for an “acceptable alternative.”
Yahoo fired back that Icahn should leave business strategies to Yahoo’s management. “He has no credible plan to operate Yahoo!,” the company said in a statement Friday. “His suggestion that we put out a price publicly to see if Microsoft will alter its stated position is ill-advised.”
Icahn is planning a proxy battle to remove Yahoo’s board of directors when the company holds its annual shareholder meeting on Aug. 1. If Yahoo does not reach a deal with Microsoft by then, expect more tit for tat.