Yahoo! may accept offer from Microsoft
By Erina Lin, Wednesday 23 April 2008 at 22:21 :: Media Ownership :: #1567 :: rss
Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, announced Tuesday that the company may still recommend a hostile takeover from Microsoft, after admitting that it had already spent US$14 million on advisers, including Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, to fight the approach, the Times Online reported Wednesday.
With a nine percent raise in revenues for the first quarter to $1.82 billion, the company remained “open to any and all alternatives including a sale to Microsoft,” according to Yang.
However, Wall Street remained unconvinced that Microsoft’s $43 offer undervalues the company. In after-hours trading, Yahoo! shares were virtually unchanged at $28.36. At the end of formal trading Tuesday, it closed at $28.54, while the Microsoft offer values each Yahoo! share at $31, the Times Online reported.
Since this offer was brought up in January, Yahoo! has approached News Corporation and AOL, and has explored a possible joint venture with its bigger rival, Google.
Yahoo!, which claims to reach three out of four American Internet users, is trying to find another partner, in order to avoid being acquired or extract a higher price from Microsoft.
It has already rejected a takeover proposal from Microsoft, claiming that the offer price was too low.
Microsoft wants this deal done because Yahoo! can help compete more aggressively with Google, and seize a share of the online ad market, which is estimated to be worth $40 billion, and is expected to double in two years, according to the article posted on the Time Online.
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