Evening Leaders: Loeb Reiterates Call for Yahoo Chairman’s Exit, Greek Crisis, Google Rivals Team Up, Facebook IPO Delayed, Spain Faces Rating Risks

Loeb Reiterates Call for Yahoo Chairman’s Exit (DealBook)
Well, that is one way to deal with an activist investor.
The hedge fund manger Daniel S. Loeb says in a new filing that a phone conversation on Monday with Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock of Yahoo ended with Mr. Bostock hanging up on him. Or, in Mr. Loeb’s description, it ended with “Mr. Bostock’s abrupt unilateral termination of the call.”
And what Mr. Loeb, whose hedge fund recently took a 5.15 percent stake in Yahoo, heard before that moment did not please him.

Germany and France Back Greece on Austerity Effort (NY Times)
The Greek prime minister vowed to abide by austere cuts in the struggling country’s budget, and the leaders of France and Germany promised to support Greece as a central part of the euro zone, the three officials said Wednesday in a statement after a joint conference call.
In their call, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been expected to tell the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, that he must meet deficit-cutting promises to the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in return for subsidized loans and a second bailout.

Google Rivals Team Up in Ad Plan (WSJ)
In a bid to take on Google Inc., rival Internet companies Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL Inc. have started pitching Madison Avenue executives on plans to join together to sell ads on each other’s sites, according to people familiar with the matter.
The new system would make it possible for advertisers to buy display ads on Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL sites that the Internet companies don’t sell directly to marketers, these people say. It would launch later this year or early 2012, the people said.

Facebook puts off IPO until late 2012 (FT)
Facebook is preparing to launch its blockbuster initial public offering in the US towards the end of next year, a later public debut by the social networking site than had been widely anticipated, say people familiar with the company. The IPO, expected to be one of the world’s biggest with recent private share sales valuing Facebook at more than $66.5bn, has been expected by April 2012, with persistent speculation that it could even come this year.

Spain Faces Rating Risks on ‘Downside’ as Regions Lag Targets, Fitch Says (Bloomberg)
Spain faces risks “on the downside” to its credit rating as growth slows and regional governments fall behind schedule on deficit-reduction targets, Fitch Ratings Director Douglas Renwick said.
“Risks for the credit rating are clearly on the downside,” London-based Renwick said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The regional deficit performance adds to pressure on the central government to make the needed cuts.”