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Activist investors cheering on corporate raider

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's successful rebuff of Microsoft's takeover bid may be a short-lived victory, as legendary investor Carl Icahn may be itching for a proxy fight.

Could Microsoft end up owning Yahoo anyway? The groundwork for a proxy battle to knock out some of Yahoo's board fell into place, with Icahn's name in the middle of it.

The investor started picking up shares in Yahoo recently, possibly amassing as much as 50 million shares, CNBC said; Kara Swisher thinks Icahn leaked this to CNBC. While other investors shied away from a proxy fight with Yahoo, Icahn is made of sterner stuff; he has yet to confirm his plans for Yahoo.

His intentions should be clearer by the end of today. Nominations for Yahoo's board of directors need to be made by May 15th.

Icahn may be working toward pushing Yahoo and Microsoft to start talking again, even though Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated his company has moved on from the aborted deal. The Wall Street Journal sees a similar pattern here to Icahn's involvement with other deals, namely Oracle's purchase of BEA.

That acquisition seemed doomed until Icahn got involved, ultimately bringing the two companies back to the negotiating table. Yang and company must be hoping for Icahn to go back to pestering Time Warner, as he has famously done so in recent years.