Third Point's Loeb adds to Yahoo 'Resumegate' heat

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SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 9 (UPI) -- Activist investor Daniel Loeb, founder of hedge fund Third Point, said U.S. search engine firm Yahoo! Inc., had been "left to flounder" under flawed leadership.

Loeb said he "took no joy in witnessing this carnage," referring to the controversy over Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson's padded company biography, which said he earned a college degree in computer science, when he did not.

Thompson apologized for the error, but Loeb, who is lobbying for a seat on Yahoo!'s board of directors, said Thompson had issued "a classic 'I'm sorry you feel that way' non-apology," The New York Times reported Wednesday.

"Without any explanation or accountability, Yahoo has been left to flounder under a discredited leader for an undefined period," Loeb wrote in a letter to the board.

"It seems farcical to us that the board will most likely spend more time deliberating over whether Mr. Thompson should be fired than it did properly vetting whether he should have been hired," wrote Loeb, who has called for Yahoo!'s chief financial officer, Tim Morse, or its global media head, Ross Levinsohn, to take over until a new CEO can be found.

Morse or Levinsohn would be appropriate choices, "assuming neither had any knowledge of Mr. Thompson's fabrications," Loeb wrote.

Yahoo! has not responded to Loeb's most recent letter, the Times said.