Yahoo Sees Small Victory in Nazi Dispute
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Free speech activists and Yahoo Inc. declared a small victory Thursday in a dispute over whether the e-commerce giant can host auctions for Nazi memorabilia on its U.S. sites.
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An association of Auschwitz deportees and an anti-racist organization sought a symbolic one euro in damages in a Paris Court of Appeal from the former boss of Internet site Yahoo over sale of Nazi memorabilia on the Internet.
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Yahoo said yesterday that it would offer severance packages to employees affected by any change in control of the company as analysts predicted that Microsoft would wage a proxy battle rather than increase the value of its takeover bid.
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Yahoo Inc.'s board has concluded Microsoft Corp.'s $44.6 billion takeover bid undervalues the slumping Internet pioneer and plans to reject the unsolicited offer, a person familiar with the situation said Saturday.
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YAHOO&#39;S BID to stop two French groups stopping it selling neo-nazi paraphernalia are having a job convincing the US court system to intervene.
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AOL has held talks with Yahoo about a possible deal to fend off an approach from Microsoft, a report says.
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Microsoft plans to intensify its pursuit of Yahoo this week when it authorizes a proxy fight to oust Yahoo&#39;s board, meaning the 19-day old acquisition attempt will soon turn a darker shade of ugly, according to The New York Times.The proxy fight will cost Microsoft between $20 million and $30 million, much less than having to significantly up its offer for Yahoo, The Times reported Tuesday morning, quoting anonymous sources.The aggressive move would be consistent with Microsoft&#39;s statements hinting that it&#39;s willing to acquire Yahoo via hostile means if necessary.&#160;Yahoo&#39;s board rejected unanimously Microsoft&#39;s offer, calling it too low.Yahoo declined to comment about The Times&#39; article. Microsoft didn&#39;t immediately reply to requests for comment.On Feb. 1, Microsoft offered to pay $31 per share for half of Yahoo&#39;s outstanding shares in cash -- about $22.3 billion -- and 0.9509 of a Microsoft share for the other half. Microsoft&#39;s half-cash/half-stock offer to Yahoo was valued at about $44.6 billion at the time it was made; Yahoo&#39;s share price was $19.18 at the time.However, the bid&#39;s value has dropped to about $41 billion as the price of Microsoft&#39;s stock has fallen from $32.60 at the time the offer was made. It was trading at $28.77 on Tuesday morning. At the same time, Yahoo&#39;s stock has surged, erasing the bid&#39;s original premium. It was trading at $29.32 on Tuesday morning.In the proxy fight, Microsoft would hire a proxy solicitor to urge Yahoo investors to kick out board directors, The Times reported, adding that all Yahoo directors are up for nomination this year.After investing heavily in recent years in its Internet business and failing to achieve its desired goals, Microsoft is now convinced that it must acquire Yahoo in order to compete against common rival Google, especially in search advertising, the largest online advertising market pie, and one that Google dominates.As of the end of 2007&#39;s third quarter, Google had almost 25 percent of the U.S. Internet advertising market, up from almost 21 percent in 2006&#39;s third quarter, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Yahoo&#39;s share during this period dropped to 11.3 percent from 12.3 percent, while Microsoft&#39;s declined to 5.2 percent from 5.8 percent, according to IDC.In search usage, Google held a commanding 62.4 percent of queries worldwide, followed by Yahoo in a very distant second place with 12.8 percent, according to comScore. Microsoft ranked fourth with 2.9 percent, after Baidu (5.2 percent).Unquestionably, Yahoo would be a major win for Microsoft in the display ad market. In November, Yahoo ranked first in the U.S. in display ad impressions with a 19 percent share, while Microsoft came in third with 6.7 percent, after News Corp.&#39;s Fox Interactive (16.3 percent), according to comScore. Google took seventh place with 1 percent.However, skeptics question whether acquiring Yahoo will yield the expected benefits, considering the complexity of integrating the two businesses, cultures and technology platforms and the fact that Yahoo has had severe internal problems that have stumped its most seasoned executives. In addition, some aren&#39;t sure that a unified Microsoft/Yahoo will have a better chance to compete against Google.Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang, who is also on the board of directors, has been urgently looking for and considering alternatives to a Microsoft acquisition soon after Ballmer and company made their bid.Reports -- all attributed to anonymous sources in various media outlets -- have emerged in the past two weeks that Yang has held conversations with Google, AOL and News Corp., exploring various deals that would allow him to reject Microsoft&#39;s offer.The key is that the shareholder value created by a competing deal would have to at least match the value of Microsoft&#39;s deal. Otherwise, Yahoo would make itself liable to shareholder lawsuits that alleged the board had failed to perform its fiduciary duty.So far, as experts have analyzed the potential value to Yahoo of outsourcing its search advertising to Google, merging with AOL or selling a 20 percent stake to News Corp. in exchange for MySpace, the consensus has been that none of those scenarios comes close to matching Microsoft&#39;s offer.
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Alibaba, partly owned by Yahoo, is said to want greater participation in debate on the potential acquisition.
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According to the report, Yahoo's outside advisers are in favor of a deal, despite the interest of some executives to seek an alternative tie-up with Web search leader Google.
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Yahooâs board decided that Microsoftâs $44.6 billion hostile bid undervalues the company, people involved said.
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Duel over Yahoo sets off a policy and public-relations battle between corporate rivals.
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Privacy groups are promising a fight before U.S. regulatory agencies if&#160;Microsoft&#39;s offer to buy Yahoo&#160;for $44.6 billion is accepted, and the deal could face significant hurdles in Europe as well.
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Yahooâs board may decide that selling to Microsoft is the best course, given Yahooâs recent troubles and its sagging share price. But what if it doesnât?
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The Microsft-Yahoo battle continued Monday with some unexpected twists. Microsoft indicated it will keep fighting even as Yahoo's board raised the price and reports suggested Yahoo is trying to restart merger talks with AOL.
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The discussions stem from an approach that Yahooâs bankers made to News Corporation in an effort to find a âwhite knightâ and avoid a hostile takeover by Microsoft.
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A major overhaul at Yahoo Inc   appears unlikely as a result of a strategic review being  undertaken by the company, the Wall Street Journal reported in  its online edition, citing people familiar with the matter.
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 -- Yahoo's third-quarter profit fell less than analysts had expected, raising hopes that the slumping Internet powerhouse can deliver on the comeback promises of a new management team that took over four months ago.