Forum Home
PC World Chat
 
Thread ID: 86917 2008-02-01 12:37:00 Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo stu161204 (123) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
636262 2008-02-01 12:37:00 Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.4bn) in cash and shares.

The offer, contained in a letter to Yahoo's board, is 62% above Yahoo's closing share price on Thursday.

Yahoo cut its revenue forecasts earlier this week and said it would have to spend an additional $300m this year trying to revive the company.

It has been struggling in recent years to compete with Google, which has also been a competitor to Microsoft.

news.bbc.co.uk
stu161204 (123)
636263 2008-02-01 13:47:00 I'm in the Microsoft conference call right now. Steve Ballmer, Kevin Johnson have both spoken and Ray Ozzie is speaking right now. It sounds pretty good the way they think about integrating both companies. Lets see what the analysts say at the end of the conference.

dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com

www.engadget.com

Oh hey, the Kiwi CFO is speaking right now. Every Yahoo share is worth .9509 MS Shares and are being offered a 62% premium. They can accept cash and/or MS Shares to get reimbursed.
beeswax34 (63)
636264 2008-02-01 14:02:00 Questions and Answers: Live Blogging

The infrastructure and data centre savings should be quite substantial . If they did merge then all the ads served by MS and Yahoo would be on the same database and thus be able to synergize and gain advantage quickly .

They are being quite cagey about how MS would raise Yahoo's margins and how they would change Yahoo's business model(s) .

Now someone from Goldman Sachs is what if someone else bid a higher price than MS and also why MS over some of the other bug media companies and how did they decide on $31 a share . MS is also getting feedback from advertisers and clients that the merger should go ahead and also that they would be better able to compete against Google . Also Google with a 75% market share would not be allowed to take over Yahoo .

Guy from JP Morgan, how would you stop Yahoo from continuing to lose market share? Steve Ballmer: The increased and expanded R&D and engineering assets would drive innovation and thus hold or increase market share . Yahoo's minority investments in Japan and Alibaba in China are complex and once Yahoo is bought they would analyze everything but not change a lot .

Guy from Bear Sterns: Cant MS just expand its own R&D with all its cash and isn't it dangerous to integrate 2 such different co's: All integration processes are full of risk, MS could just keep hiring engineers but the market keeps growing and Google keeps consolidating and thus they need more than just no's but the respected innovation from Yahoo's engineers . Both MS and Yahoo employees are passionate and would handle integration OK . Also: why not just wait a while till things are friendlier .

Guy from Citi/CitiGroup Assets: What about the brand? There would be a joint leadership team to specify how to integrate and they have a clear vision about how to maximize synergies . It represents a transformation of our business and MS users WANT live services and Office Live and Windows Live and Yahoo are all powerful brands and there would be teams from both co's .

Has this merger put on hold any other mergers/acquistions: No .

CONFERENCE OVER .
beeswax34 (63)
1