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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."
Not as bad as you made it look. The MS offer involved MS stock, and if people had taken it, they would now have about $20. Still not the best decision Yahoo ever made.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
They're like a prostitute with no clients and a huge "won't anyone buy us" sign strapped to their heads...
Don't mod this funny, I'm dead serious.
$14? They're at $12.20 at the time of this posting, and they hit sub-$12 in the last 24h (and have done so dozens of times).
Some respected business analysts said they're worth more like $7.50/share (WAY over inflated P/E ratio and such).
And now Google and MS don't even want of them anymore. They should get with AOL, it would make for the most epic FAIL ever (worst than the previous bubble burst, just by themselves)
Thanks god I don't have any YHOO stock!
I for one, welcome our new epic FAIL overlords.
This reminds me of a generic story. Boy asks girl out on a date, and she says no. Two weeks later, girl comes to boy and says yes, but the boy says that he has moved on, but might be open to a fuck-buddy only partnership.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Where's your middle finger now Yang? Do you see the pitchforks and torches of shareholders on the horizon? Hope it was worth it.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
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.
A brilliant hand of poker played by Mr Balmer, I think.
I do wonder whether they ever would have actually bought Yahoo. There's no way they could buy them now at the price they originally offerred, thanks to the economic downturn. But if it wasn't for the downturn, I do wonder whether Microsoft would instead have done "due diligence" into the state of Yahoo the company, and then loudly and publicly walked away, claiming they didn't like what they saw, screwing Yahoo's credibility.
So without spending anything, Balmer's caused turmoil in one competitor (Yahoo), while getting the competition watchdogs interested in the power of another (Google) - and distracting them both, perhaps causing them to take their eye off the ball for a while.
Look I told you that story in confidence...
I hate printers.
Ya-who?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/yahoo-plays-catch-up-offshore-tax/story.aspx?guid=%7BB54D432E-20D4-47B3-B7E9-204593E9E00D%7D&dist=msr_2
Long Story Short: MS & Google both have offshore tax dodges setup, so they end up paying around 24% tax rates, while Yahoo pays around 40%. Yahoo wants to join the offshore tax dodgers, but the IRS recently decided to crack down on the practice.
This isn't in the article, but IIRC, Obama has already made it clear that he's going to close such loopholes in the tax code, which will translate to higher taxes on corporations and more revenue for the Treasury Dept. (let's not have the discussion on whether this is a good or bad thing for business and the country)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Yahoo owns Zimbra which can compete with exchange.
I'd hate to see microsoft buy yahoo just for that reason.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
My Yahoo (new version) is more like a web based full feature RSS reader now. So people having My.Yahoo as default start page aren't all exactly AOL etc. types.
A wing of Yahoo does perfect and future ready things even replying every single user flame on their blogs. Another wing, sadly, can't understand the need of IMAP in todays World, tries "Tower" ads in Yahoo mail, doesn't allow search.yahoo.com tab customisation, doesn't tie "Yahoo Widgets" prefs to user account and doesn't make that genius "Yahoo Go!" work on high end smart phones just because of a simple resolution setting.
I got like 5-6 tabs on My Yahoo and it is my start page since Yahoo invented it (about '98).
Yahoo has a serious image problem among slashdot geeks it seems. It is up to Yahoo and the companies, consultants they should hire to figure the base of the problem. What causes it? The valid reasons of course, not "yahoo.com being lame". Yes, it is lame since it targets the average web public. Not you :)
As you mention them, AOL's image problem is beyond fix. Even their CEO says something like that. I am afraid Yahoo gets same treatment while they do everything in favour of geeks and developers recently. They should fix it before it gets to AOL point.
You know, all these companies sound like teenagers.
The rich asshole kid on the block (M) wants to get the cool chick (Y), not because he likes her, but because she wants to go out with the cool kid (G), and M won't have any of that. But then the cool kid realizes Y is just a whore and dumps her. And now even the rich kid doesn't want her anymore. So everyone thinks Y is a cheap slut. In the mean time, the geeks (Sun, IBM...) don't even try going for the whore because they are busy doing their own stuff. As for the classy chick (Apple), she's single because she looks down on everybody.
The stock market sure is one crazy high school.
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 $30. Instead they wanted to hang on and get the extra few bucks of merger arbitrage; and they lost their bet, since the merger didn't go through.
I don't really get blaming Yahoo's board here--- anyone who wanted to sell out at that price could have, without needing Yahoo's management's permission to do so.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10