Posted on 05/04/2008 5:03:42 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
AOL contacts Microsoft as Steve Ballmer walks away from Yahoo! bid
AOL, the internet arm of Time Warner, has approached Microsoft about a possible tie-up as a deal between the software group and Yahoo! unravelled, The Times has learnt.
The move emerged as Microsoft this weekend said it was walking away from Yahoo!, after the online search engine rejected a second, higher offer from the software group valuing Yahoo! at $47.5 billion (£24 billion).
The news broke after a meeting in Seattle on Saturday at which Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, sought to persuade Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, to yield to the software group by raising his offer from $31 a share to $33. The increased offer valued Yahoo! at $5 billion more than Microsoft’s initial approach in February. Mr Yang refused to accept the increased valuation, insisting that Yahoo shares were worth at least $38.
In a letter to Mr Yang, Mr Ballmer said: “I am disappointed that Yahoo! has not moved towards accepting our offer . . . I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares. By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table. But clearly a deal is not to be.”
(Excerpt) Read more at business.timesonline.co.uk ...
Yahoo shareholders are, in a word, pissed off. Hopefully the loss MSFT had for the past few months will go away.
That big sucking sound tomorrow is the vacuum caused by a plummeting Yahoo stock. Back to $18!
Yang is a Yahoo.....what an idiot. Now he can watch his stock go to $15 while his shareholders sue the hell out of him.
aol sux.
That’s up to the shareholders. But has MS ruled out a hostile takeover?
Yahoo saved MSFT from itself. MSFT was overpaying because they could afford to overpay as they are swimming in cash. But Yahoo greed did them in. If MSFT is smart, they will wait a year to 18 months, they may be able to catch Yahoo on sale at say maybe one half of MSFT recent best offer.
I felt AOL died many, many years ago, but this may not be a bad idea. In the past AOL was the big player with dial-up plus content. Now that connection services are separate from content, this may not be a bad idea. AOL still is a recognized brand (home page & services similar to yahoo or it won’t take much to get there).
In Q1, Yahoo had about 414MM unique visitors and AOL had 330MM. Msft could buy AOL for a heck lot less than $45B.
Goodbye Yahoo, Hello AOL. Oh, and goodbye Jerry Yang...let his ego get in the way, now will be remembered as a loser, big bucks and all.
No doubt about that. We know from first hand experience. We were their customer years ago.
Next to GM, they are the worst.
I read a WSJ article about Yahoo’s investment record over the years. It was unbelievably bad. They were offered Google for a few (I think 3) billion dollars and turned it down. I hope MS lets them stew.
Some of the things that Yahoo has proposed... like outsourcing their searching to Google, or the combination with AOL, sound like major-league value destruction to me.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Wouldn’t touch AOL again w/a ten foot pole.
Wouldn’t touch AOL again w/a ten foot pole.
AOL is probably the only company in the country hated more than Microsoft. It seems sort of fitting that they would join.
Microsoft’s value as a product is inversely proportional to Bill Gartes’ wealth.
Goes to show you don’t need to even have a halfway decent product to make a hundred billion or so.
“You don’t need to worry about Microsoft, they are a $300 billion company with plenty of other ideas to explore.”
They might want to think about selling a stable OS that’s virus and crash free.
A decent set of utilities like a decent spreadsheet and word processor, etc. might not hurt.
Microsoft hooking up with AOL would provide me with the additional incentive I need to move to Linux or Mac. I absolutely despise AOL.
Meanwhile Microsoft will simply build a new one in house.
According to Ballmer’s letter—yes he has ruled out hostile takeover—as Yang made it clear he’d apparently do things that would, according to Ballmer, make it less valuable to MSFT like sign a long term deal with Google, etc.
Gee, I wonder how much $ Time Warner would give to Microsoft to unload the disaster that is called AOL?
T/W already wrote off it’s flawed investment in AOL, just let this POS company ease itself into the grave!
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