Exactly - this was his plan whole time. That is why he sent letter about Thompson's resume; that is why he wanted seat; that is why he wanted to "unlock value" of Asian assets;
that is why Yahoo bought his shares at July 19’s closing price, guaranteeing liquidity without forcing Third Point to pay a discount, as usually happens when an investor offloads a large chunk of stock.
It goes something like this:
- Loeb & co buy 5% of the company
- gain board seats
- force the CEO to step down
- headhunt Mayer
- Yahoo uses cash it got with selling a chunk of Alibaba to buy its own stock
- Loeb & Co unload at a huge profit
- and give up their board seats again