We were doubtful last night when the story first broke. There were just too many oddities to The Times’ tale about a complicated Yahoo/Microsoft search arrangement that would guarantee billions to Yahoo in exchange for a ten year search deal. We’ve checked with our sources – all of them – and we can’t verify a single fact in the story.
The first part of the story: “Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online search business for $20 billion.”
Wrong. Our sources at Microsoft say they are not in current negotiations with Yahoo, over anything. Our sources at Yahoo agree, also saying they are not in negotiations with Microsoft over anything. Yahoo sources add that the company is fully engaged in finding a new CEO right now, and nothing else.
The second part of the story: “The proposal forms the centrepiece of a complex transaction that would see Microsoft support a new management team to take control of Yahoo…Jonathan Miller, ex-chairman and chief executive of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media, have been lined up to lead the new management team.”
Wrong. I spoke with Ross Levinsohn this afternoon. He says that there is absolutely no truth to the story. He also says that neither he or Jonathan Miller, his partner at Velocity Interactive Group, were contacted by the Times.
The third part of the story: “Under the terms of the proposed transaction, Microsoft would provide a $5 billion facility to the Miller and Levinsohn management team. The duo would raise an additional $5 billion from external investors. This cash would be used to buy convertible preference shares and warrants which would give it a holding in excess of 30% of Yahoo. The external investors would also have the right to appoint three of Yahoo’s 11 board directors. The talks with Yahoo involve Microsoft obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. It would also receive a two-year call option to buy the search business for $20 billion. That would leave Yahoo to run its own e-mail, messaging, and content services. It is expected that the operating agreement would boost Yahoo’s income by as much as $2 billion per annum.”
Wrong. See above. Also, the deal terms make no sense compared to Microsoft’s actual search offer from earlier this year. It values Yahoo way above market value, even taking deal premiums into account, and the incremental cash flow from the deal doesn’t match up to previous estimates published by Yahoo.
The Times, first published in 1785, has long been considered the newspaper of record in the UK, but yesterday they really stepped in it, and someone has manipulated them badly. Thankfully the markets weren’t open, because the article would have definitely resulted in a short term spike in Yahoo stock.
Thanks to FailBlog for the image, and just in general for existing.
Actually, whoever bought Microsoft shares as a result of the story got pwnd.
Tru dat.
Ari,
You didn’t need to do all this digging to figure out it was a farce. Icahn wouldn’t have picked up a big block of shares in the middle of a deal.
LMAO
Newest media FTW
FAIL images are just so awesome, this one in particular. Met way too many pets of family and friends this past Thanksgiving.
I can’t wait for a retraction when Yahoo and Microsoft confirm they actually were talking
Wow. Best part of all of this is me finding out about FailBlog. My stomach is hurting from all of the laughing off the images on the first page alone.
Maybe I should pick up some Yahoo stock in case *someone* buys them. It’s dirt cheap right now.
This kind of thing seems to happen more and more as of late. Journalistic standards have fallen to an all time low. Whatever happened to the three source rule?
Because techcrunch has never gotten anything wrong before?
not like this, no. There are ways to signal speculation, and we’ve published rumors before with a note that its single source, speculation, whatever. But The Times really went after this story as if it were fact. Somebody played them. At the very least they should have emailed Ross or Jon. And a call to Yahoo or MS PR would have probably given them a signal that the story was way off.
the interesting story is to find out who played them.
probably someone tweeted the story and times ran with it
Nah techrunch is always right!
I don’t know how journalism works, but could it be that Jon and Ross can’t talk because there is “talk” in progress?
sure. But Ross went on the record with us for this story.
Techcrunch Chinese fans~~~
maybe you had bad sources
maybe. but it’s kinda hard to dispute the Levinsohn denial.
Best part of the article: Failblog shout out. Much props to the people there and at I Can Haz Cheezburger. Well done Arrington.
Looks like someone will be looking for work soon. Is uk.valleywag.com hiring?
Hahahaa! NY Times was seriously duped on this one, nice catch Mike!
Whatever happened to NY Times’ basic “fact checking”, which is so much a part of core fundamentals of Journalism. It’s shocking to see NY Times sink so low! sad.
Hopefully your post here will wake them up!
thanks,
Susan Beebe
This isn’t the NY Times.
The Times, a UK paper.
Maybe there is a shred of truth to this, but Carl Icahn is telling all parties involved to shut the f$¥*k up so he doesn’t get busted for insider trading. He did just buy a boatload of shares on Friday. Until Friday, carl could not have made money on his first yahoo investment if it went for under $30. If something was brewing, he had to act quick. And he knows that whatever happens in the near future, $30+ is a stretch.
perhaps some of the times’s details are true and they are bejing revised in real time, which would explain most of this. Just like when ba11mer told novell no on exclusivity right before inking the deal with the suse coupons. Because he still wanted to get rht on board.
Perhaps mike a. Knows this and is leading you all on like the pied piper and you all as his rats
there’s this weird need to believe anything that’s written in a newspaper.
Everyone should keep an eye on the stock market….
Nice Catch Mike, you did a good job by contacting each of them and making sure that the whole The Times story was untrue!
Two awesome things just happened. Mike beat the Times, and Fail blog’s existence was commended
Does this sound like “Shattered Glass” to anyone else?
http://en.wikip...Shattered_Glass
Mainstream types say you shouldn’t believe everything you read on blogs. This goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers.
Small point but it was the Sunday Times, not The Times, its sister paper. I suppose the shared website makes for confusion.
Right or wrong it doesn’t really matter.
When they were first “in talks” stocks went up and down.
Then when Google was “in talks” stocks went up and down.
Now The Times prints they are “in talks” again and the stocks will go up and down a bit again (that’s how media works, it doesn’t matter if it’s right or not).
At the end of the day, nothing has happened, and people will still buy Yahoo in anticipation of the anticipation of an acquisition.
“You didn’t need to do all this digging to figure out it was a farce. Icahn wouldn’t have picked up a big block of shares in the middle of a deal.”
Actually, if I were Icahn and Microsoft truly were in talks to buy Yahoo at double their current stock price, I’d pick up as big a block of shares as possible:P
Also, if insider trading were going on, all the more reason everybody would deny it going down.
Conclusion? If I owned a newspaper, I’d buy Yahoo, print the story, then get out of town. Until pens hit paper, all of this is just a way to kick Yahoo’s stock around and beat up on Yang.
Even though you got the wrong paper, thanks for calling The Times “The Times” and not “The Times of London”, which every other American seems to think it’s called.
same website, same owner.
The real story is how faux news is taking up blog shelf space when the focus should be on Yahoo hijacking, or PWNING, money from customer accounts to shore-up their sorry-ass business.
They hit my card for $34.95 on Nov. 24th. claiming to be “auto-renewing” a product I bought back in 2005 (for $2.99). When I search the web I see I’m not alone. Folks are talking class-action.
I would’nt be surprised if Yahoo flung this crap “news” themselves just to see how much would stick and who would be stuck-on-it. What a stink’n diversion.
Yahoo aint getting $20 billion! They’re stealing from 20 million!
Well no spike in the stock price?
http://de.finan...=YHO.F&t=5d
up more than 20% in early trading in Frankfurt. 130,000 shares aren’t that much, but definitely more than “no harm done” …
If its from the Times; don’t trust and verify.
Maybe this rumor was started by Jerry Yang in an effort to make his stock worth something now that retirement looms.
…You focking grownups are so focking boring
Microsoft really in desperate needs of Yahoo audiences, Microsoft without a doubt need Yahoo, Microsoft web presence is not enough to compete Google, Yahoo online reach plus massive users base could make sense, The combination of two companies could almost create leverage against Google, the two companies got not so bad search engine, allright online advertising system and nice brand name, Yahoo need Microsoft’s massive infrastructure to power most of Yahoo search, Yahoo don’t have enough cash to acquire those expensive data centers that badly needed for Yaho search business. For more about Microsoft Adventure you can check my site, and for more about the latest on Yahoo and Google just drop to my site at http://netcrawl.blogspot.com
I’ll been following the Yahoo-Microsoft stories for months.
Go for it Microsoft!
mega fail eh lol
I can’t believe the crap people try. Fail.
This kind of thing seems to happen more and more as of late. Journalistic standards have fallen to an all time low. Whatever happened to the three source rule?
The real story is how faux news is taking up blog shelf space when the focus should be on Yahoo hijacking, or PWNING, money from customer accounts to shore-up their sorry-ass business.