Yahoo to name four new board members, ending Starboard proxy fight

Yahoo Inc. has come to an agreement with activist investor Starboard Value and will add four new directors to its board, the struggling tech company said Wednesday.

The announcement ends a proxy fight that began last month when Starboard said it would nominate nine directors to Yahoo’s board. If it had been successful, the move probably would have ended Chief Executive Marissa Mayer’s tenure. She has been trying to turn around the Sunnyvale, Calif., company.

As part of the agreement, Starboard has withdrawn its director nominees for Yahoo’s board.

The four new directors are Tor Braham, former head of technology mergers and acquisitions for Deutsche Bank Securities; Eddy Hartenstein, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times and board director of the paper’s owner, Tribune Publishing Co.; Richard Hill, chairman and former interim chief executive of semiconductor company Tessera Technologies; and Jeffrey Smith, Starboard chief executive.

Braham, Hartenstein and Smith were among Starboard’s nominees.

Starboard is one of Yahoo’s largest shareholders and has grown increasingly frustrated with the tech company’s turnaround efforts.

In a letter to shareholders in March, the New York hedge fund said that Yahoo’s management and board had “repeatedly failed” shareholders and that Mayer hadn’t made enough of an effort to find a buyer for the struggling company or to find a way to spin off its lucrative Yahoo Japan Corp. and Alibaba Group holdings.

Yahoo’s stock has tumbled about 30% since November 2014. Its shares were down 39 cents, or 1%, to $36.72 in mid-morning trading Wednesday.

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