Overture Shareholders OK Yahoo! Bid

Not all balloting in California today was suspenseful. At a special meeting in Pasadena, Overture Services stockholders overwhelmingly voted to accept Yahoo’s acquisition bid at a special meeting today.

The offer, valued at $1.63 billion in July, which helped to stoke an already hot search sector.

Final paperwork in the merger between the Pasadena, Calif., commercial search specialist and the San Jose, Calif., portal giant will be signed after today’s closing bell.

Overture will operate as a subsidiary of Yahoo Its president and CEO, Ted Meisel, will continue to lead the unit, as well as take a senior vice president post at Yahoo

Other than Meisel’s retention, the companies have declined to say whether job or facilities cuts would occur post-merger.

“This integration move very quickly now, and Yahoo will be announcing details when the merger is done,” Jennifer Stevens, an Overture spokeswoman told internetnews.com.

The deal marks the apogee of Yahoo CEO Terry Semel’s drive to focus the company on solidifying its leadership in the search sector. In December, Yahoo bought algorithmic search provider Inktomi for $235 million.

With a both search tools, Yahoo is positioned to head-to-head with industry heavyweight Google.

But new ownership is expected to change the way Overture operates somewhat. Most notably, its relationship with Microsoft’s MSN portal is likely to end after its contract expires next year.