Boards Of Directors

Outraged by new details about Yahoo Inc.'s efforts to complicate Microsoft Corp.'s takeover bid, activist investor Carl Icahn says he believes Yahoo's board will have to be fired to lure Microsoft back to the bargaining table. Icahn said in a Tuesday interview with the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft was unlikely to renew its courtship as long as Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and the company's eight other directors remain on the job. "I'm very cynical about many of the boards and CEOs in this country, but even I am amazed at the lengths that Jerry Yang and the board went to entrench themselves in this situation," Icahn told the Journal.

Continuing an unusual tradition of including artists in its governance, L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art has elected conceptualist Barbara Kruger to its board of trustees. Kruger, a professor at UCLA, will join artists John Baldessari and Edward Ruscha, appointed a few years ago, and three other new members: Christopher V. Walker, a financial executive who founded Meridian Pacific Capital Partners and recently ended a 10-year tenure on the board at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Charles S. Cohen, a real estate developer; and Maurice Marciano, a fashion designer and co-founder of Guess Inc. MOCA also has announced the acquisition of 130 artworks purchased, donated or promised in 2007.

Facebook made it official: Silicon Valley legend Marc Andreessen will join the board of directors. Andreessen has long been an informal mentor to Mark Zuckerberg. No one could better know what the young Facebook founder and CEO will go through than Andreessen, who helped start the Internet revolution when he co-founded Netscape at the age of 22. -- --Jessica Guynn

Yahoo Inc.'s board of directors landed its first endorsement from a major institutional shareholder Friday, giving it momentum in the fight with investor-agitator Carl Icahn over control of the Internet company. Bill Miller, who as Legg Mason Capital Management's chief investment officer controls 4.4% of the stock in Yahoo, said he would vote to keep the current board in place instead of backing a dissident slate nominated by Icahn. Icahn has allied with Microsoft Corp.

Despite widespread investor discontent, the recommendations are in, and -- for the most part -- Yahoo Inc.'s board passed. RiskMetrics Group endorsed Yahoo's slate of directors Thursday, though it expressed reservations about the board's decision to adopt a controversial severance compensation plan and about the way it handled failed merger talks with Microsoft Corp. The report from the shareholder advisory firm says Yahoo investors should reelect Chief Executive Jerry Yang and seven other directors.

Maguire Properties Inc., the Los Angeles real estate developer under pressure from investors to consider a takeover bid, plans to add four directors under an agreement with shareholder JMB Capital Partners. The new board members will be Jonathan Brooks, Cyrus Hadidi, Paul Watson and a JMB Capital nominee to be named shortly, Maguire said. Brooks is the founder and general partner of JMB Capital Partners, which owns 9.7% of Maguire's shares.

For 18 hours each week, Internet investor Jonathan Miller studies tai chi in New York with legendary master Ren Guang-Yi, whose devotees include Lou Reed, Bette Midler, Hugh Jackman and other celebrities. During the sessions, Miller's lanky frame flows through fluid, continuous movements, punctuated by quick bursts of energy. Three decades of Chinese martial arts have made his limbs so supple that he can do the splits at 51.

After six months of fireworks as a takeover battle for Yahoo Inc. raged, the Internet company's annual meeting Friday produced little spark and few questions about the board's controversial decision to spurn Microsoft Corp.'s advances. Despite deep disappointment in the management and direction of Yahoo, investors voted overwhelmingly to re-elect the board, with 85% of ballots supporting Chief Executive Jerry Yang and 80% backing Chairman Roy Bostock.

A major Yahoo Inc. shareholder has asked for a review of how its votes were cast in last week's reelection of the Internet company's board, raising questions about whether the opposition to the directors may have been understated. Capital Research Global Investors of Los Angeles, which owns a 6.2% stake in Yahoo, demanded the review Monday, Capital spokesman Chuck Freadhoff said. Capital World Investors, a related fund that owns nearly 10% of Yahoo, didn't make the same request.

Yahoo Inc. on Thursday named former Viacom Inc. leader Frank Biondi Jr. and former Nextel Partners boss John Chapple to its board of directors, fulfilling a promise it made to settle a proxy fight with dissident investor Carl Icahn. Both men had been on a slate of candidates for the board Icahn nominated after Yahoo was not sold to Microsoft Corp.