Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo
By MIGUEL HELFT and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: February 1, 2008
FROM: NYTIMES.COM
SAN FRANCISCO — In a bold move to counter Google’s online pre-eminence, Microsoft said Friday that it had made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo for about $44.6 billion in a mix of cash and stock.
If consummated, the deal would redraw the competitive landscape in Internet consumer services, where both Microsoft and Yahoo have both struggled to compete with Google.
The offer of $31 a share represents a 62 percent premium over Yahoo’s closing stock price of $19.18 on Thursday. It would be Microsoft’s largest acquisition ever.
Microsoft said the combination of the two companies would create efficiencies that would save approximately $1 billion annually. The software giant also said that it had an integration plan to include employees of both companies and intends to offer incentives to retain Yahoo employees.
This is really a bad news for the web & for Yahoo! employees (many of them will be “sacrified” in the name of “eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs”)
;o(
IMO M$ won’t be able to integrate Y! & also that most Y! users will leave as soon as Y! is another M$ product.
During that time google will keep growing…
let’s effing hope it helps google. my google stock has plummeted lately and i am less than happy about it.