• Reuters, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 12 PM

Yahoo on Tuesday was forced to revise the results of last Friday's shareholder vote after Capital Research Global Investors demanded a recount of the vote due to surprising results that played very favorably for CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock. However, those results changed when Yahoo was informed by Corporate Election Services, the company's inspector of elections, that Broadridge Financial Solutions, a proxy voting intermediary for major investors, had made significant errors in reporting votes at last Friday's shareholder meeting.

The revised tally showed that 33.7% of the votes were withheld for Yang and 40% was withheld for Bostock, or more than twice the opposition cited in the first count. The initial tally had shown 85% of the votes in favor of Yang and 79% of the votes in favor of Bostock. Several other directors, including Ron Burkle (38%) and Arthur Kern (32%) showed strong opposition during the recount.

"That's a big negative vote against the Yahoo board, but it doesn't change anything," RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler told Reuters. "It is a statement that they shouldn't be under any illusion that their support is broad." Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said the recount only "somewhat lowers the credibility of the management team."

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