Shareholders endorse Yahoo's board

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Yahoo's (YHOO.O) board of directors received strong backing from shareholders at its annual meeting on Friday, with embattled Chief Executive Jerry Yang winning an 85 percent favourable vote.

Shareholders representing nearly 76 percent of Yahoo's 1.38 billion outstanding shares gave solid favourable votes to all nine of the company's current directors, in what represents a ringing endorsement of their tough stance with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) in this year's talks on a full or partial merger.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Braden Reddall)