(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc’s board of directors will review a discrepancy in the educational record of its chief executive, Scott Thompson, a spokesman told Reuters, after activist hedge fund Third Point accused Thompson of padding his academic credentials.
Yahoo will also make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders when the review is complete, the spokesman said.
On Thursday, Third Point’s founder and chief executive, Dan Loeb, wrote in a letter to Yahoo’s board that 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.
Third Point owns 5.81 percent of Yahoo’s shares and has been fighting to gain seats on the company’s board.
Early on Thursday, a Yahoo spokesman called 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 said in an emailed statement. “There was an inadvertent error that stated Mr. Thompson also holds a degree in computer science,” he added.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Editing by Matt Driskill)