Yahoo Interested In a Microsoft Buyout, But Microsoft Isn't

Linux Blog writes "The Google-Yahoo advertising deal has been rejected by the Department of Justice, and Google has pulled the plug on a search-ad partnership with Yahoo that would have given Yahoo major new revenue, but that raised antitrust concerns. Now, Yahoo has said the 'For Sale' sign is still on its front lawn and that Microsoft should buy the company. The internet portal's co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang made this comment despite the fact Yahoo rejected a $33 a share offer from Microsoft back in May. What a huge loss for the share holders. Microsoft was quick to respond that their buyout efforts were a thing of the past, but left the door open to a search partnership."

Comments

yahoo's hubris

[trybywrench]

Where's your middle finger now Yang? Do you see the pitchforks and torches of shareholders on the horizon? Hope it was worth it.

Re:Wait, what?

[hedwards]

MS was willing to pay $33 a share to keep Yahoo from aligning with Google, now that it's become patently obvious that the DoJ isn't going to allow that to happen the strategic value of Yahoo to MS has gone down significantly.

It was worth it to MS to pay $33 per share in order to still have a chance at that market. Right now, with that out of consideration the value to MS has dropped significantly.

shareholders could've taken $30 if they wanted

[Trepidity]

YHOO was trading for around $30 on the open market at the time of that offer. If shareholders wanted to sell out, they could've just sold their shares through any broker on the exchange, and gotten $30. Instead they wanted to hang on and get the extra few bucks of merger arbitrage; and they lost their bet, since the merger didn't go through.

I don't really get blaming Yahoo's board here--- anyone who wanted to sell out at that price could have, without needing Yahoo's management's permission to do so.