Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo - end of days nigh

Feb 1, 2008 | Comment

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7uOT0ro100U&refer=home

MicroYahoo vs. Goople?

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo! Inc. for about $44.6 billion, or $31 a share.

The offer is 62 percent more than Yahoo’s closing stock price yesterday, according to a Microsoft statement distributed by PR Newswire. Yahoo shareholders can choose cash or stock, Microsoft said.

Microsoft and Yahoo explored ways to work together in late 2006 and early 2007, according to a letter Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer sent to the Yahoo board. Yahoo rejected the idea of being taken over by Microsoft a year ago, the letter said.

“While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing,” the letter said. “This proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.”