Microsft Gives Cold Shoulder to Yahoo Buyout
The recent collapse of talks between Google and Yahoo regarding a proposed advertising partnership, had resurfaced the decision by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang in May to reject a buyout by Microsoft.
At the time, after 3 months of courtship, Microsoft was willing to pay $33 per share for Yahoo, $6 more than the stock’s high price in 2007. Yahoo’s share price was approximately $12 on Friday. Not surprisingly, Yang has a renewed the interest in a buyout by Microsoft.
Yang had said recently that “whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company” which subsequently was rebuffed by Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, saying “Microsoft has moved on.”
The real question is whether Microsoft can really ignore Yahoo at this point, given the low Yahoo stock value being a third of what Microsoft offered for it just 6 months ago. It is possible that Ballmer is still interested and simply practicing a negotiation tactic of seeming uninterested.
Another option for Yahoo is to just remove its search business and sell it to Microsoft. Another option is for Yahoo to become an even larger company by buying AOL and continuing to remove redundant jobs.
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