According to Associated Press Carl Icahn, American billionaire financier and investor, has managed to acquire $67 million in Yahoo! shares, bringing his total stake of the company to some $75.6 mln, or about 5.5 percent of the company, in a move that has taken many analysts by surprise.

Icahn, currently among the fifty richest men in the world with a net worth surpassing $14 bln as of today, has been investing in the IT industry for several years and owns stakes in companies such as Take-Two Interactive (publisher of the record-selling "Grand Theft Auto" videogame series), Time Warner (owner of AOL) and Motorola among others.

Recently, Icahn showed interest in the takeover of Yahoo! and the ousting of Jerry Yang from his current position as CEO to allow Microsoft to purchase the company. Such a move, as a false rumor circulating just a few weeks ago demonstrated, would have a positive effect on the company stock value and result an excellent financial maneuver for the investor, who would soon see Yahoo! stocks steadily climbing.

The billionaire was one of the main detractors of Yahoo's and Yang's refusal to the Microsoft buyout offer earleir this summer for the amount of $47.5 bln, and consequently threatened the Web company board of directors pressing to nominate a new slate of directors as Yang's motifs for his refusal seemed unreasonable and egocentric: he was blamed for ruining the rapport between the two companies as well as failing to close the best deal for shareholders. Icahn then came to an agreement with the rest of the board according to which he could take a seat into the company board, and reserve two more for people appointed by himself.

Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang said earlier this month that he will step down as chi

ef executive as soon as the company's board finds a successor and ensures the transition takes place smoothly and without obstacles, and investors are certainly eager to know who the successor will be and which policies he will follow, since the future of the company will heavily depend on such decisions.

In all likelihood, Icahn's move — which took place in over three days, from Monday through Wednesday and resulted in an average buying price per stock of $9.92 — is aimed at making his voice count even more as the company is about to change CEO, making sure a future acquisition by Microsoft will be made more likely.

As stated several times, though, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as well as spokesmen from the Redmond-based software giant made it clear that the company is no more interested in acquiring Yahoo!, although Ballmer has expressed interest in buying the company's search business alone, a move that has the potential to boost the Live Search market share.

Meanwhile, as the news of the Icahn acquisition spreaded through investors, the company stock rose over nine percent today to $11.51 a share. James Friedland, an analyst with New York-based Cowen & Co., said that, unfortunately, Yahoo's problems are bigger than Jerry Yang himself: the next CEO may in fact have to restructure the company for a sale, meaning he or she will have to be "a very un-Jerry Yang-like person".

The quest for a new chief executive will be undertook by chairman Roy Bostock and executive recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles. "Having set Yahoo on a new, more open path, the time is right for me to transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader," Yang told the press in a recent interview. "I will continue to focus on global strategy and to do everything I can to help Yahoo realise its full potential and enhance its leading culture of technology and product excellence and innovation".