Digital media giant Yahoo confirmed a discrepancy in the academic background of its CEO Scott Thompson and said it will review the matter and report the findings to shareholders.
Activist hedge fund Third Point’s founder and chief executive, Dan Loeb, raised the issue of Thompson’s academic credentials in a letter to Yahoo!’s board yesterday.
Third Point, which owns 5.8pc of Yahoo!’s shares, has been battling to join Yahoo’s board.
In the letter, Loeb wrote Thompson claims to hold a bachelor’s degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College near Boston, but said Thompson “embellished his academic credentials” because the CEO’s degree is in accounting only.
A Yahoo spokesman responded yesterday, calling the discrepancy an “inadvertent error.”
“Scott Thompson received a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Stonehill College,” the spokesman told Reuters said in a statement.
“There was an inadvertent error that stated Mr Thompson also holds a degree in computer science.”
