Yahoo has been a top story this year mainly because Microsoft tried to buy it for $33 a share, or more. Crazy? Maybe. But there's not much Microsoft can do with its money except give it back to shareholders.
In the event, Steve Ballmer was saved by Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang, who wasn't about to see his baby swallowed by the barbarians from the north. He was supported by Yahoo's staff and the anti-Microsoft crowd, who threw their predictable hissy fits, and by a board of directors apparently too stupid to just take the money and run.
That looked like a bad mistake at the time. It now looks even worse with Depression 2.0 looming: Yahoo's shares have already fallen to $12.65.
For the masochists among you, Silicon Alley Insider has posted a link to "the Investor Presentation Yahoo delivered when it was trying to persuade its shareholders that Microsoft's $31 offer was ludicrously low".
However, as Reuters reports, one Yahoo investor has suggested trying to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for $22 a share:
Under the proposal by investment fund Mithras Capital, Microsoft would unload Yahoo's Asian assets and non-search businesses, extract $3 billion worth of cost savings and receive $2.8 billion of tax benefits, meaning the software giant would pay $10.3 billion for Yahoo's search business.
Is Ballmer that crazy? Maybe. If so, will the proposal be enough to stop Yahoo's free fall?
Staff
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