Big news today! Microsoft has proposed to acquire Yahoo! through an open letter sent by Steve Ballmer to Yahoo’s board of Directors. The deal will be valued at 44.6 billion in cash and stock. This deal breaks down to $31 per stock, providing a 62% premium to the current trading price of Yahoo’s stock ($19.18 yesterday).
Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer writes, "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market. We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners"
This deal will combine two of the internet’s super powers, leaving Google aside. Yahoo’s stocks are down, and they recently laid off 1,000 out of their total 12,000 employees. It makes complete sense for Microsoft to take benefit out of the situation to fulfill their 10 year old dream of acquiring Yahoo!
Yahoo! surely has some juicy assets like Del.icio.us and Flickr. Correct me if I am wrong, but Yahoo! Mail still rules over Gmail (in terms of users). Microsoft definitely wants Yahoo! for their assets and not for their man power. I wouldn’t be surprised, if MS decided lay some more Yahoo! employees after the deal.
Microsoft has made smart move. Are you in favor of this deal?
Read: Press Release
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