Yahoo Spent $79 Million To Fend Off Microsoft

Apologetics Blog writes "Getting bought by one of the biggest companies in the world turns out to be a rather costly thing. Last year when Microsoft was in talks with Yahoo regarding a possible buy-out, in a report recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo announced that it cost them $79 million to fight off Microsoft. Most of that money was spent on advisors who examined Microsoft's proposals, and the way it would impact on Yahoo's search agreement with Google. The deal fizzled out when federal antitrust regulators said it would challenge any deal made between the two companies."

Comments

advisors

[sveard]

Shows that consultants win, as they so often (always?) do

Re:advisors

[ZeroExistenZ]

How can that possibly cost that much?

Good salespeople.

Re:advisors

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how advisors work but consultants have a simple business plan:

• Employ clueless CS graduates for cheap.
• Hire them to clueless company wanting software project as "consultants" for $100 per hour.
• Profit.

The advisors probably replace "CS graduate" with "newly qualifed lawyer" and charge 10x the amount.

Profit.

fiduciary responsibility?

[Shakrai]

Does Yahoo! have a viable business plan besides merging with someone else at some point? If I was one of their shareholders I might have gotten pretty annoyed that they dismissed the MSFT offer out of hand the way they did. What's the future of Yahoo! without a merger? They have a platform in the works that can pose a serious challenge to Google and secure marketshare against them or Microsoft? Didn't think so.....

Re:fiduciary responsibility?

[Shakrai]

You can be #2 and be wildly profitable and stable. In fact many time #2 is the most stable company to invest in.

Thanks for telling me what you can be. Now tell me if you honestly think Yahoo has any future outside of slowly bleeding to death after Microsoft overtakes them and Google becomes even more entrenched.

seventy-nine million dollars dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

The $79 million dollars...

79 = seventy-nine
$79 = seventy-nine dollars
$79 million = seventy-nine million dollars
$79 million dollars = seventy-nine million dollars dollars

Re:seventy-nine million dollars dollars

[Vectronic]

$79 million dollars = Dollars seventy-nine million dollars.

$79 million dollars = Seventy-nine dollars million dollars.

$79 million dollars = Dollar sign seven nine space letter m letter i letter l... .. . . . .

$ can mean dollars, or pesos.

Who gives a fuck.

Two thoughts for major shareholders of Yahoo

[OneSmartFellow]

1.) Immediately investigate Jerry Yang's connection with the "advisors".
2.) Ensure that the current CEO understands that any future "advisment" of this nature will come out of her pension.

That's $215K per day for a whole year !

Do you expect me to believe that the 100 top flight lawyers and accountants were working every day of the year on this ? Or did they just hire Accenture ?

Valuation killed the deal, not anti-trust threats

[aunt_jamima_sr]

> The deal fizzled out when federal antitrust regulators said it would challenge any deal made between the two companies. The way I understand it, the deal actually fizzled out because some Yahoo C-level egos couldn't agree on a valuation with Microsoft. Yahoo, whose stock currently trades for $12.60, wouldn't sell to MS for $33 / share because they felt they were worth $37 / share, and also because they are idiots. Slashdot actually covered this story at the time.