Posted on Wednesday, February 20 2008 @ 3:10 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Microsoft claims they aren't willing to offer more than $31 per share for Yahoo and urges the firm's management to reconsider the offer:
"We sent them a letter and said we think that's a fair offer. There's nothing that's gone on other than us stating that we think it's a fair offer," the Microsoft chairman said Monday. "They should take a hard look at it."
Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc. just over two weeks ago. At the time, the deal was valued at $44.6 billion, but since then, Microsoft's share price has tumbled 12.8 percent, pushing the value of the cash-and-stock offer closer to $41 billion.
Yahoo spurned the offer and said it "substantially undervalues" the company's assets. The Web portal business was said to be in talks late last week with News Corp. about a complex deal to push its market value toward $50 billion. Yahoo also was reportedly discussing an advertising partnership with Google Inc.
Most analysts believe Microsoft will do whatever it takes to buy Yahoo. Redmond-based Microsoft has invested heavily in honing its own search engine and advertising technology, but neither it nor Yahoo have helped close the gap with Google, which dominates Microsoft and Yahoo in U.S. search queries and related advertising revenue.
Source: AP
