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Microsoft Sets Three Week Deadline for Yahoo! In Public Letter
An anonymous reader writes "In a letter sent today, Microsoft writes to Yahoo's board of directors to tell them that they would like to 'negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies.' Their message is a combination of friend and foe: 'If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders.'"
Which means frankly, that MS is going to own Yahoo.
I don't know if this is good or bad, but time will tell... The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly, especially in the midst of this recession.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Amnesty International
I don't think you understand. In a publicly held company, the shareholders own the company. If they want money (and they do), they'll just vote out the board at Yahoo and vote in one that is in favor of being bought out.
Sitting on the sidelines and saying what someone should do with a company they've built up from the ashes is very easy for you, but you have to consider what they're thinking. The people who founded Yahoo are free thinkers.
Yahoo is thought of (or was, during the boom) almost like Google is today. It's hard to build something from nothing and then have someone threaten to take it away like this. MS is strong arming them. They're basically saying "Sell or we'll take you over by rousing your stock holders" which is just business... but you have to really consider it from the perspective of the people who have created and grown with the company from the beginning.
If I were the yahoo management, I would be fighting MS with everything I have and looking for an alternate deal to screw them.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly, ...
... especially in the midst of this recession.
Shareholders are supposed to sell when they receive an advantageous offer. Advantageous being a return that is more likely greater than holding the stock. What do you think shareholders are, some sort of fanboys? More importantly, why do think the founders of the company went public and brought in shareholders, it was so that the founders could pocket a lot of money. So now the story that the founders sold to the shareholders turns out not to be true, and the shareholders are looking for their best option. This is the way public financing works.
The motivation to sell in this specific case is not the recession but a failed business model.
FWIW, the midst of a recession is usually the time to buy. The onset of a recession is usually the time to sell.
I think that's exactly it. People want to frame this as 'it's a good deal now that we're in a recession'... as if economics was the only motivational factor behind anyones' existence.
I would imagine Jerry Yang finds himself opposed to many of Microsoft's core operating principles.
Undoubtedly, he will cringe when he types yahoo.com into his browser a few years from now.
The founders and management of Yahoo dont own the company, it isnt their decision nor should it be. The founders made the decision that they wanted to go public and basically sell the company to others. Sure, they built it from ashes, but they made the decision to sell it. (for quite a bit of money too)
What is becoming apparant now is that they really just wanted all the money they got from selling the company to the general public, they didnt actually want other people to be the real owners of the company. You cant have your cake and eat it too, if you sell controlling shares of your company you have to accept that you cant just do whatever you want to with it, you have an obligation to act in the best interests of the shareholders. (the real owners of the company) If the founder of a company cant accept that he should just keep his company private.
They're basically saying "Sell or we'll take you over by rousing your stock holders" which is just business... but you have to really consider it from the perspective of the people who have created and grown with the company from the beginning.
Boo-hoo. Those poor, poor billionaires. Their lives will have been meaningless.
Don't want to be subject to hostile takeovers? Don't go public. And good luck making a few billion.
In a world of closed source glass-clad skyscrapers, open source is the concrete and steel. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
a faltering business model isn't generally associated with a company that is reporting 15% growth in revenues in the states, 20% in the EU and 30% in places like China - each quarter.
about 16 million unique visitors to its web sites each month.