This morning, Microsoft signaled to Yahoo in a very public way that it won’t raise its bid on its proposed acquisition. Sources “close to the company” (possibly the investment bankers trying to orchestrate a deal) tell the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft is standing firm on its initial offer of $31 a share (which has now declined in value, in step with Microsoft’s stock price, from $44.6 billion to about $42 billion). The WSJ reports (subscr. req.):
“There’s no reason to bid against ourselves,” one of these people said.
Microsoft’s strategists believe that time is on their side, the people close to the company say. The strategists argue that Yahoo’s recent roadshow failed to dazzle investors and nothing in its presentations will justify a higher price, the people say. In addition, the strategists argue that the worsening economic downturn and stock-market weakness make the original bid look even more generous.
Thus the negotiations through the press continue. The WSJ also suggests that Microsoft won’t reveal its alternate slate of directors until it has to—and that won’t be until ten days after Yahoo announces the date of its 2008 shareholders meeting, which it has yet to do. Who will blink first?
Meanwhile, in an April Fool’s joke that Microsoft and Yahoo shareholders might find distasteful, InfoWorld put out a false report that the deal actually did go through today. The worst part is that it wasn’t even funny, except for this single line:
Employees that Microsoft decides to retain will be offered an Xbox 360 game platform and a Zune music player as tokens of appreciation
Google concern over Microsoft and Yahoo Merger.
“There Is No Reason To Bid Against Ourselves.” -Actually that is a good point. -I don’t see anyone else stepping in with offers.
hanging in there yahoo. You can be a leader without them.
Enough with the shotgun-like spraying of “unfunny” tags at various april fools larks.
What did you guys have for breakfast? Obviously something really bad.
I have a bad feeling about this merger, it could blow up like the Time Warner & AOL merger years ago. Judging by the structure and corporate culture of both companies, I think it would be difficult for them for work in synergy.
Employees that Microsoft decides to retain will be offered an Xbox 360 game platform and a Zune music player as tokens of appreciation.
And what about window vista?
“Microsoft Stands Firm on Microsoft Bid: “There Is No Reason To Bid for anyone but Ourselves.”
“Who can deliver the most value to end users? Us or Yahoo? So , there isn’t any reason not to buy ourselves”
Now this is an April Fools joke I’d love to see.
Not that only I was born on April 1st but also read news which I think are joke
as @7:hesitations said.
I think this is only cheap and free advertising for both companies Yahoo and Microsoft.
“Economy is down, hm lets think how can we get people to talk about our companies – Yeah lets tell them Ill buy your company and you are refusing my offer”
That’s the way I see Micro and Yah ….
@6: All fired Yahoo! employees will be given brand new copies of Windows Vista and a rope to hang themselves with.
@8: These are billion-dollar, worldwide well-known companies. You really think they’re going through all this hub-bub for the payoff of cheap and free advertising?
@3: Nice sentiment, but one third of the value of the stock right now has built-in MS acquisition. Quite frankly, Yahoo seemed to be quite indifferent about the future until the MS offer was made public. Leading on their own hasn’t been their forte for quite some time.
Good idea. Anyway I do not think that Microsoft will buy Yahoo sooner than 2010. Buy that day the Yahoo will worth something like Facebook ~ 15-20$ billions.
I will give you 3 steps for Microsoft to forget about Yahoo:
1. invest another 10 billions of dollars in Facebook or acquire it.
2. buy another social networking site – Hi 5 – and develop upon it a new communication tool involving advanced messaging system and powerful e-mail platform.
3. combine Live platform with a real universal content platform suitable for users and content producers – with real revenue posibilities
*keep up with features for MSN
*expand MSDN
I can’t stand Yahoo. I won’t be any more inclined to visit them whether or not Microsoft owns it.
Why is everyone waiting for an announcement on a ‘deal’ between Yahoo and MS? This was a hostile takeover to begin with and will go through as such.
We agree with Gordon — we don’t think this bid will go through ever at this point. Would it even be truly beneficial? We think not.
Haha, InfoWorld is awesome.
Where is the April Fool
wish yahoo would stop wasting time so we can get this deal done and the industry can move on to new innovations.
Tired of all the crying. What have you people innovated lately? Facebook? big fucking deal, humanity I’m sure has benefited from that.
MS can innovate, they can change the world in real ways, not like facebook, meebo, and all the other stupid star start ups that will never contribute to the betterment of mankind, but sure will make $$$ for some.
“There’s no reason to bid against ourselves,”
OWNED!
:-O
Haha.
Let the hostile takeover begin.
I would like to see Google acquiring Yahoo. Microsoft is software-focused. Google can better run Yahoo.
Number 4 is right. It is amazing how unfunny you guys find everyone else’s April Fools stupidity given how lame TechCrunch contributions were.
@17,
u have no clue. wat innovations have microsoft done lately(even outside the web)? if they can change the world in real ways, why the hell they need y!
There are quotes from that CNET article that work pretty well when describing Yahoo as well
“Despite premiere brands and content, (yahoo) has consistently underperformed peers and destroyed enormous shareholder value. “
Isn’t this similar to bear stearns buyout? Where the price of the company is signifigantly higher, yet due to market value decreasing a low bid can force a buy out.
The only thing Microsoft is innovative in is buying other companies, and making more money from them.
If anyone here has ever played the classic bored game monopoly. You would know that buying any properties with enough capital will always resume a profit. MS has so much capital it can buy the entire internet, and everyone would be like “oh it’s a great deal cuz money isn’t worth that much anymore…”
Money should not neccesarily = the value of a company… In 10 years if we are still using webspace do you think perhaps it would be a little less annoying if microsoft owned everything? If Yahoo is around for another 10 years who is to say how much it will be worth, yet I can guarantee it will be worth 100xs more than Microsoft paid for it…
people it’s April first…