Yahoo Inc. shelled out $36 million in the first half of 2008 to the outside advisers that helped the company navigate stormy buyout talks with Microsoft Corp. and the ensuing proxy threat from activist investor Carl Icahn.

Yahoo leaned on investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Moelis & Co., and the law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, after Microsoft made its initial $44.6 billion offer, which was made public in February.

The negotiations collapsed in early May when Yahoo rejected an even richer $47.5 billion offer, but Microsoft came back later that month with an offer to buy Yahoo’s search operations a la carte. As that floped, Icahn, who has a enlarged history of challenging corporate boards, threatened to replace all of Yahoo’s directors with his own hand-picked slate so he could negotiate a sale.

Yahoo’s $36 million tab, disclosed in a regulatory filing, […]

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