Major Yahoo investor urges Microsoft to raise offer
525673
Yahoo Inc's   second-biggest investor urged Microsoft Corp  to raise  its $42 billion bid for the Web pioneer and warned Yahoo it has  few options left, raising the pressure on them to seal a deal.
394721
Skeptical investors are trading  Yahoo Inc  shares at a 6.5 percent discount to  Microsoft Corp's  unofficial offer price, but some Wall  Streeters expect the software giant to raise its bid.
176538
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Microsoft Corp   made a bid to buy Yahoo Inc  for $44.6 billion in cash  and stock, seeking to join forces against Google Inc   in what would be the biggest Internet deal since the Time  Warner-AOL merger.
187054
Yahoo Inc's board met by telephone on Friday and discussed strategy for getting Microsoft Corp to raise its $42 billion offer for the company and the possibility of hiring Google Inc to run Yahoo's search, the Wall Street Journal said.
710734
Microsoft was urged to raise its $42 billion bid for the Internet company and warned Yahoo that it has few options left.
258397
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rebuffed&#160;Google&#39;s accusations&#160;that an acquisition of Yahoo would be anticompetitive.The bid was made public Friday, prompting the response from Google over the weekend. Ballmer Monday at a news conference ceded ground to Microsoft&#39;s arch rival in order to justify his company&#39;s&#160;$44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer for Yahoo,&#160;which if accepted would fall under the scrutiny of U.S. and European regulators.&quot;Google&#39;s clearly got a dominant position,&quot; Ballmer said. &quot;They have about 75 percent of paid search worldwide. We think this enhances competition and anything else would be less good.&quot;A Google executive struck back at Microsoft on Sunday, charging that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo would control an overwhelming share of e-mail and instant-messaging accounts as well as portal traffic.David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer at Google, further suggested that if Microsoft buys Yahoo it might try to unfairly use its dominance in those areas, just as it did in the PC market.Monday&#39;s news conference, in which Ballmer spoke with Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, appeared to put further pressure on Yahoo&#39;s board to accept the offer, which at $31 a share represents a 62 percent premium over Yahoo&#39;s closing price last Thursday.&quot;We think it&#39;s an extremely competitive offer,&quot; Liddell said.In a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo disclosed an e-mail sent on Friday by CEO Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock, non-executive chairman of Yahoo&#39;s board. &quot;First, we want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there&#39;s certainly no integration process under way,&quot; the e-mail read.Ballmer continued with a hard push as to how a deal with Yahoo will let Microsoft move faster in building out areas such as search, online services and online advertising.&quot;We are going to have to innovate like crazy,&quot; Ballmer said.But he also stressed how long it could take for a Yahoo deal to eventually benefit shareholders. Ballmer said he looks at whether investments will pay off five to 10 years down the line, but investors often want to see results in three years.&quot;Sometimes those investments look smart, sometimes it takes a while for them to pay off,&quot; Ballmer said.
40311
Fingers in both pies !!!!! Some of Yahoo!'s institutional investors are keen for the proposed Microsoft takeover to go ahead, not because they're pleased with the offer price but because they own shares in both Microsoft and Yahoo!.â¦
662909
InfoWorld - Microsoft may end up having to raise the amount it is willing to pay for Yahoo if the software company's stock continues to drop while Yahoo's continues to rise.
392210
The Yahoo bid is a dramatic statement from Microsoft, a company that delayed acknowledging the importance of emerging Web business models for so long.
618846
Microsoft Corp offered  to buy Yahoo Inc for $44.6 billion, in a bold bid to transform  two ailing Internet businesses into a worthy competitor for  market leader Google Inc.
539908
Redmond appears ready to appeal directly to Yahoo shareholders to sell their stock to Microsoft, even as Yahoo sets the table to make an acquisition more difficult.
126167
BOSTON/SEATTLE  - Yahoo Inc's  second-biggest shareholder urged Microsoft Corp  to raise its $42 billion bid for the Web pioneer and warned Yahoo it has few options other than to accept, raising pressure for them to seal a deal.
65190
Microsoft said&#160;its $44.6 billion offer to purchase Yahoo&#160;is &quot;fair&quot; and hinted that it may pursue a hostile takeover of the Internet company, according to a statement Microsoft made Monday in response to&#160;Yahoo&#39;s formal rejection of its buyout offer.In a statement, Microsoft said it&#39;s &quot;unfortunate&quot; that Yahoo &quot;has not embraced&quot; its proposal to combine the two companies, and the rejection of the offer &quot;does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal.&quot;The company also hinted that it may take the offer directly to Yahoo&#39;s shareholders, a move that could result in a hostile takeover.&quot;As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo&#39;s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal,&quot; Microsoft said in its statement.Earlier Monday, Yahoo formally rejected Microsoft&#39;s bid to acquire the company in a half-stock/half-cash purchase, saying it undervalued Yahoo.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, since then Microsoft&#39;s stock has gone down while Yahoo&#39;s has risen, making the deal, under its current terms, worth less than when it was originally offered. This led to speculation that Yahoo might look for other suitors; the company is reportedly looking for about $40 per share. Yahoo&#39;s share price closed at $29.87 Monday; Microsoft&#39;s closed at $28.21.Some have speculated that Microsoft would raise its offer to the company to about $35 per share -- about midway between its original offer and Yahoo&#39;s target price -- but in its statement on Monday, the company seemed adamant about keeping the offer as it stands.&quot;We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company,&quot; Microsoft said. &quot;Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s offer to purchase Yahoo is an attempt to join forces and improve both companies&#39; positions against Google in online advertising and services. However, many questioned both the logistical complexity and cultural differences involved in combining the companies, and there are fears that it will thwart rather than help their efforts to compete with Google.Yahoo is reportedly in talks with both AOL and Google to try to avoid being acquired by Microsoft. Analysts said Monday that Yahoo&#39;s initial rejection of the offer is more of an attempt to elicit a higher bid -- either from Microsoft or another company. If none comes, the company might decide in the future to accept Microsoft&#39;s offer as it stands, they said.
666926
Microsoft said Friday it had offered to buy struggling Internet firm Yahoo for 44.6 billion dollars (30.0 billion euros) in a bid to take on Google in the crucial battle for online revenues.
518985
The chance that Yahoo Inc. will put itself up for sale has increased since the most-visited US website lowered its revenue forecast, according to Stanford Group. Microsoft Corp. is a candidate to buy the company, analyst Clayton Moran said.
157906
Yahoo Inc  on Monday rejected  as too low Microsoft Corp's  unsolicited takeover  offer, currently valued at $42 billion, putting the ball back  in the software giant's court to pursue a deal.
335290
Now that Microsoft has said it wonât raise its bid for Yahoo and is moving to take the matter to shareholders, it is time for Yahoo to say what it plans to do next.