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Shareholder Backs Yahoo!, Supports Independence
mikkl666 writes "In a follow-up to yesterday's story about the struggle between Microsoft and Yahoo!, major Yahoo! shareholder Legg Mason has announced that they are ready to back the company in their effort to keep out of Microsoft's grip. According to portfolio manager Bill Miller, 'the problem is Microsoft blundered with the letter this weekend. Telling the shareholders you're going to take something away from them is not a way to get their support'. Nevertheless, he believes Microsoft will end up paying what it takes to own Yahoo."
So no Yahoo! logo dressed up as a borg then ? :(
Is it just me, or is there only chaos and mayhem in store if MS tries to merge with Yahoo? They are two incompatible business and I can't see what MS would gain from their multi-billion dollars 'investment'. Why does IBM & Lotus come to mind right now?
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
I've said it before, if Microsoft eliminates Yahoo Cribbage I will kill myself.
Do you want that blood on your hands, Microsoft?
They're approaching a Yahoo! acquisition with all the grace of the Mongols taking over a medieval village -- "If you let us in, you'll get a rough deal; if you resist, you'll get an even rougher one."
All it takes is for a couple more major shareholders to insist that Yahoo! is worth more than MS wants to pay, and the bluff will be very effectively called; you can't do a hostile takeover if you can't find shareholders willing to sell a controlling interest, and the shareholders are ultimately the ones who would suffer from an overly low valuation. Sure, maybe the Board is holding out for an unduly high valuation, but more likely MS is mis-valuing Yahoo! -- though I'm sure Yahoo!'s value would drop to whatever MS paid for it pretty quickly, if Ballmer really wants to get this far out of the company's core business.
All the more reason for major shareholders to turn their noses to the deal.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
While I would hate to see Yahoo! bite the dust (more for historical reasons), it would be great for MS to flush a stack of cash, as I can see MS doing nothing but destroying what little is left of them.
Yes, MS, cash out everyone still hanging on to that sinking tub! The faster MS runs out of cash, the sooner we get to enjoy a world without them.
As for Yahoo!, I remember when you all didn't suck. Yep, you and HP...
Yahoo! is currently maintaining a $36 Billion dollar market cap. It goes without saying that deciding what an internet company is worth is somewhat shaky ground, but they are profitable by $0.47 per share in the last year and they have a set of managers who are clamoring that they have a lot of new revenue streams that are going to materialize in the next year or two.
So, what is Yahoo! actually worth if Microsoft's offer isn't good enough? $40 Billion? $50 Billion? $60 Billion? $100 Billion?
Can anybody defend their valuation with some finite analysis that goes beyond pulling numbers out of thin air? Furthermore, can somebody figure out how much Microsoft would be willing to pay based on the benefits that merging Yahoo's customers and properties into their own would produce?
If you look at the 5-year chart for MSFT, it is pretty clear that they have done a good job of maintaining the status quo... while the only real marketable success that they have enjoyed during that time has been the introduction of a competitive video game system.
On the other hand, the 6 month chart for Google is suggestive that the future value of internet based ad revenue isn't worth nearly as much as it used to be.
So, what gives?
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Legg Mason is an investment firm that owns a 6% stake of Yahoo.
This is actually 83,843,501 votes AGAINST the current MSFT offer.
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Seems a little dumb to pay $20 to purge the account when you can easily use FetchYahoo! located at http://fetchyahoo.twizzler.org/ or http://sourceforge.net/projects/fetchyahoo
-eg
There's good argument that MS is only after market share, primarily in email where the acquisition would give them a monopoly - less so in search and web properties where it would only slow their loss. And there's no argument that MS is after technology - as Yahoo's stuff is run on open source platforms MS could leave in place for awhile; but certainly not publicly develop further.
However... consider this scenario:
1. Microsoft makes a huge bid for Yahoo that, while not clearly being in it's own best interests, clearly *is* in the best interest of Yahoo shareholders, and is far too large to be matched by anyone.
2. Yahoo predictably resists the offer, to the point where it's arguably *not* acting in the best interests of it's shareholders.
3. Microsoft uses this behaviour to wage a proxy fight to get Yahoo's whole board of directors fired and replaced with people it favours.
4. Microsoft now essentially controls the board of a competitor, without ever having actually bought them.
Now... however you feel about an actual acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft - can we all agree it would make perfect sense for Microsoft to wrest control of Yahoo's board of directors - even if they had no intention of buying them?
Can anyone shed any light on whether it would be possible for Microsoft to win a proxy fight without an iron-clad guarantee they'd buy Yahoo under the terms of their current offer; or if Yahoo could do something that would force them to should the offer be a whole or partial bluff to win a proxy fight?
I would assume that since the takeover has been announced, that Yahoo! has been bleeding talented folks who don't want to be assimilated.
Have any of these folks started new companies? Any high profile defections to the Googleplex? Or would that be prevented by non-compete clauses in their contracts?