Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo! - Will Microsoft Win the Bid?
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Most analysts seem to believe that no one else will match, let alone beat, Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo. For example, Tim Smalls, head of US stock trading at brokerage firm Execution LLC, said that “To me, the premium seems exorbitant, for what is a dwindling business.” So why pay more for it?
Besides, there are very few players who might be interested in Yahoo who could beat Microsoft’s bid. One of them is Google, of course, but Google isn’t going to make an offer. It’s having enough trouble convincing the EU antitrust regulators to let its purchase of DoubleClick go through. An attempt to buy Yahoo would likely put them in trouble with US antitrust regulators.
Still, some report that there may be other bidders waiting to enter the game. Henry Blodgett cites sources as saying a private equity firm might be interested, specifically Quadrangle Partners. This New York-based firm gained a brand new employee with close ties to Jerry Yang – former Yahoo president Dan Rosensweig. If Yang is looking for a way out of this bid, this could be an option.
Quadrangle might not be Yahoo’s only option, either. TechCrunch claims that News Corp., owner of MySpace, is trying to put together the money for a bid on Yahoo as well. Whether they’ll be successful in their bid remains to be seen.
Whether the Microsoft bid will succeed really comes down to one question: can Jerry Yang and Susan Decker convince Yahoo’s stockholders that they can turn the company around in a reasonable amount of time? Bylund thinks that “If Yang can hook the world’s biggest traffic generator up to some new revenue-generating machinery, all will be well. Microsoft buying the company at this juncture would put a crimp in Yang’s authority and autonomy, and would rob shareholders of potentially massive gains if Yahoo becomes all that it can be.” But this will be a hard sell to shareholders who have watched their stock plummet for far too long, and are desperate for some kind of change for the better – even if they have to sell what’s left of Yahoo’s free-wheeling soul to bring it about.
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