No Microsoft deal sends Yahoo shares tumbling
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - May 5, 2008 The sell-off wiped out nearly half the gain in Yahoo Inc.'s
stock price since Microsoft Corp. made its initial offer on Jan. 31
in an effort to challenge online advertising and search leader
Google Inc. The downturn left Yahoo's market value about $14
billion below Microsoft's last offer.
Last-ditch talks between Yahoo and Microsoft were fruitless,
leading Microsoft to walk away from a deal Saturday.
In late-morning trading Monday, Yahoo shares shed $4.69, or 16.4
percent, to $23.98, below Friday's close of $28.67, when investors
were still hopeful about a deal.
Despite the backlash, analysts doubt Yahoo shares will fall back
to their $19.18 pre-bid price, partly because some investors may
still be holding out hope that the software maker will renew its
takeover attempt if Yahoo continues to struggle.
Microsoft shares rose nearly 2 percent, or 57 cents, to $29.81.
The shares had declined 10 percent to $29.24 since the bid,
reflecting concerns that the proposed marriage would turn into a
complicated mess that would enable Google to grow even stronger.
Shares in Google went up nearly 2 percent, or $11.15, to
$592.44. The company not only averted a marriage it had fiercely
objected but also began discussions that could lead to a long-term
advertising partnership with Yahoo, a deal made more likely with
Microsoft's withdrawal. Any Google-Yahoo alliance, though, would
likely face antitrust hurdles.
Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang remained convinced that the
company he started in a Silicon Valley trailer 14 years ago, was
worth more than the money Microsoft had offered.
Now he may only have a few months to convince Wall Street that
his rebuff of Microsoft's takeover bid was a smart move - and if he
can't, analysts won't be surprised if Yang is either replaced as
CEO or forced to consider accepting a lower offer if Microsoft
comes knocking at his door again.
"This squarely puts the pressure on Jerry Yang to deliver
results and shareholder value," Standard & Poor's equity analyst
Scott Kessler said. "You are going to see a lot of shareholders
just throwing in the towel because they are going to realize it's
going to take awhile for the stock to get back to where it was
Friday."
In a posting Sunday night on Yahoo's blog, Yang welcomed the
added pressure. "We know the spotlight will probably stay on us
for a while," Yang wrote. "That's fine - we have a clear path
ahead and momentum to build on." He added the Microsoft saga had
turned Yahoo into "a stronger, more focused company with an even
greater sense of purpose."
Yahoo shares finished last week at $28.67, slightly less than
the $29.40 per share that Microsoft was offering before Chief
Executive Steve Ballmer agreed to raise the offer to $33 per share
in a last-ditch effort to get a deal done.
Disillusioned shareholders are bound to question whether the
rejection of Microsoft's sweetened offer was driven more by emotion
and ego than sound business sense.
"Clearly there's frustration," said Darren Chervitz,
co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns Yahoo stock. "I
am not even sure if Yahoo cares about its shareholders because they
didn't show much regard for shareholders' best interests in this
process."
In his blog posting, Yang defended the board's handling of the
Microsoft bid and branded some of the criticism as "a lot of
nonsense and misinformation."
"We clearly indicated to Microsoft that we were open to a
transaction but only if it were on terms that fully recognized the
value of Yahoo and was in the best interests of our stockholders,"
Yang wrote.
Accompanied by fellow Yahoo co-founder David Filo, Yang flew to
Seattle on Saturday to inform Ballmer that the company wouldn't
sell for less than $37 per share - a price that Yahoo's stock
hasn't reached since January 2006.
To win the faith of shareholders, Yang will have to execute a
turnaround plan that he began drawing up nearly a year ago after he
replaced Terry Semel as CEO amid shareholder angst about the
company's financial malaise.
Ballmer also will be under the gun to prove he can come up with
another way to challenge Google's dominance of the Internet's
lucrative search and advertising markets.
The unsolicited bid was widely seen as Ballmer's admission that
Microsoft needed Yahoo's help to upgrade its unprofitable Internet
division.
Analysts now expect Ballmer to use the money he had earmarked
for the Yahoo acquisition to explore other possible deals with
large Internet companies like Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and News
Corp.'s MySpace and promising startups like Facebook Inc. and
LinkedIn Corp. Microsoft already owns a 1.6 percent in Facebook,
the second-largest social network behind MySpace.
But Ballmer is unlikely to be under as much duress as Yang, 39,
who has promised that Yahoo's development of a more sophisticated
and far-flung Internet advertising platform will produce net
revenue growth of at least 25 percent in 2009 and 2010.
That would be a dramatic improvement, considering that Yahoo's
revenue rose by 12 percent last year and is expected to grow at
about the same pace this year.
Analysts, though, are skeptical about whether Yahoo will be able
to hit those targets, raising the chances for a shareholder
rebellion if the company stumbles in the next two quarters - a
distinct possibility if advertisers curtail spending in a shaky
U.S. economy, as many analysts fear.
To help boost its short-term profits and its stock price, Yahoo
is widely expected to form a long-term advertising partnership with
Google.
Although the final details are still being ironed out, Yahoo
wants to hire Google to place some of the text-based ads that
appear alongside the search results on its Web site. It's a task
that Google already handles for scores of Web sites, including AOL
and Ask.com.
But turning to Google for help would be a humbling step for
Yahoo after spending more than $2 billion to acquire and build its
own technology.
An alliance between Google and Yahoo also would face antitrust
hurdles because the two companies combined control more than 80
percent of the U.S. search advertising market.
Yahoo also has been exploring a possible merger with AOL's
Internet operations but may now have to contend with a competing
offer from Microsoft.