DJ Yahoo Barring Reporters From Annual Meeting Friday
25 Apr 20:25
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP)--Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), the Internet portal that built
a billion-dollar business delivering information to anyone anywhere, is barring
journalists from its annual shareholders' meeting Friday.
Reporters who don't own stock in the company will have to listen over the
Internet, getting a flavor but not the full sense of the proceedings - and
inhibiting their access to shareholders.
Yahoo is within its legal rights in keeping reporters out. But the decision
subverts the premise that journalists are the eyes and ears of investors who
can't travel to the meetings.
Even banks, utilities and other companies that sometimes face
public-relations nightmares let reporters in to watch management field
questions from investors. Some do prohibit cameras or recording equipment,
however.
"I've never heard of the media being barred altogether," said Diane Bratcher,
spokeswoman for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a New
York-based coalition of religious institutional investors. "I remember Exxon
(XOM) at the time of the Valdez oil spill, and how nasty that was. But they let
reporters in."
Yahoo spokeswoman Nicki Dugan said the rule has been in place during the
company's five years as a public company. Management wants to ensure enough
space in the meeting room for investors, she said.
Dugan said Yahoo executives checked with other Silicon Valley companies and
determined that several have similar policies. She cited Cisco Systems Inc.
(CSCO) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW) as examples.
Spokeswomen for both companies, however, said Cisco and Sun don't have such
policies.
Dugan later said she had erred in naming Sun and Cisco. She said Yahoo's
investor-relations department had found other examples she was "not at liberty
to disclose."
Yahoo's meeting comes as the company faces several challenges: a stock price
that has lost 85% of its value in the past year; plunging profits in the wake
of the dot-com implosion; the first layoffs in the company's history; and a
transition to a new CEO and chairman.
Yahoo is generally not news-phobic. Articles about the company - good news or
bad - regularly appear among the thousands of business stories on Yahoo's
financial Web pages.
Dugan acknowledged Yahoo would be unable to stop reporters from asking
shareholders who aren't going to be designated as their proxies at the meeting.
She said Yahoo isn't concerned that most other companies just let reporters in.
"We're following our own tradition," she said. "We feel that this is a legal
function intended for our stockholders."
Company Web site:
Yahoo! Inc. investor relations: docs.yahoo.com
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 04-25-01
08:25 PM |
