Microsoft Walks From Yahoo Offer
Microsoft rescinded its proposal to purchase Yahoo! Inc. following last ditch efforts to reach mutually amicable terms by sweetening the bid to $33 per share or roughly $5 billion. Yahoo stood firm in its selling price of $37 per share.
Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corporation have been in a stalemate since Microsoft offered $4.6 billion to purchase Yahoo! on January 31, 2008. Recent reports have indicated that Microsoft would raise the bid, instigate a hostile takeover or walk away from the offer.
Michigan native and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, Steve Ballmer, wrote of his decision to withdraw in a published letter to Jerry Yang, Yahoo! Inc. CEO, on May 3, 2008, “I am disappointed that Yahoo! has not moved towards accepting our offer. I first called you with our offer on January 31 because I believed that a combination of our two companies would have created real value for our respective shareholders and would have provided consumers, publishers, and advertisers with greater innovation and choice in the marketplace. Ballmer continued, “In our conversations this week, we conveyed our willingness to raise our offer to $33.00 per share, reflecting again our belief in this collective opportunity.”
The software giant’s Chief Executive Officer declared that Yahoo’s current path to implement a search partnership with Google influenced the decision explaining that “such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons.” Ballmer officially withdrew the bid by stating “Accordingly, your apparent plan to pursue such an arrangement in the event of a proxy contest or exchange offer leads me to the firm decision not to pursue such a path. Instead, I hereby formally withdraw Microsoft’s proposal to acquire Yahoo!”.
Finally, Ballmer reiterates in closing, “But clearly a deal is not to be.”
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