Microsoft has made their intentions clear, they want to assimilate Yahoo!. Microsoft has been approaching Yahoo! in 2006 and 2007 for some kind of partnerships and even a merger. Yahoo! has been rejecting the proposals, and now Microsoft is moving in for the hostile takeover. Now it is up to Microsoft and Yahoo! shareholders to decide the fate of this hostile takeover. This reminds me of Futurama episode “Future Stock“.
Breaking news on the tech industry as Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion in stock and cash. As reported, Microsoft would pay shareholders $31 per share. Yahoo! share closed on $19.18 on Thursday January 31st, 2008.
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.
“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”
Microsoft’s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.
CNBC: Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo
CNN: Microsoft bids $45 billion for Yahoo
Reuters: Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion
This would be interesting, because Yahoo! owns numbers of widely used services such as Flickr, del.icio.us, Yahoo! Mail, and others. As a matter of fact, 37prime.com (my site) is hosted by Yahoo! Web Hosting.
to be continued!