Yahoo is quietly hiring advisers who specialize in defense against cage-rattling shareholders — even as it responds to investor demands that it put itself up for sale, The Post has learned.
The struggling Web portal — whose Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is still scrambling to pull off a stalled turnaround — has begun approaching prospective bidders for its core business, and interested parties include Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, sources said.
But at the same time, Yahoo’s board has tapped Innisfree M&A — a so-called proxy solicitor firm that specializes in recruiting investor support in board contests — as it girds for a possible battle with Jeff Smith’s Starboard Value, sources said. The New York hedge fund, which owns 0.75 percent of Yahoo’s shares, has been agitating for a sale.
In addition to Innisfree, Yahoo has quietly tapped Evercore Partners, an investment bank with a strong practice in defending companies against activists, according to sources close to the situation.
Last month, Evercore hired Bill Anderson, a former Goldman Sachs banker who had advised Yahoo a year ago in its previous tangle with Starboard, insiders noted.
“The worry is whether the [sale] process is sincere,” one Yahoo shareholder said. “Are they just hoping to string it along for as long as possible and eventually convince people you don’t need to sell it?”
Starboard, meanwhile, has hired proxy solicitor firm Okapi Partners as it looks to recruit shareholder support for a potential board shakeup, sources said.
Investors got more worried this weekend amid chatter that first-round bids in Yahoo’s sale process — which will also likely attract interest from buyout firms including TPG, KKR and Bain Capital — won’t likely be due for at least a month.
That could miss the March 25 deadline for Starboard to nominate directors in a proxy contest. The month-long window for nominations opens later this week.
Meanwhile, Verizon — whose AOL unit chief Tim Armstrong is licking his chops to gain control of Yahoo, according to sources — has been getting stonewalled in recent approaches.
“The financials are out there. It’s not like they couldn’t have Verizon doing deep diligence now,” one source griped. “It’s a public company, a lot of data is out there.”
Neither the appointment of Evercore nor Innisfree was disclosed by Yahoo last Friday, when it announced it had hired Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and PJT Partners — the boutique firm headed by veteran media banker Paul Taubman — to explore a possible sale of the company.
Yahoo likewise failed to mention the involvement of Frank Quattrone, a veteran tech banker who, as previously reported by The Post, has been advising Mayer personally amid growing tensions with the board over whether to sell the company.
A rep for Yahoo declined to comment. Innisfree and Evercore didn’t respond to requests for comment.