Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Business & Technology | Microsoft's failed Yahoo bid now looks like lucky miss | Seattle Times Newspaper

Interesting times…

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said he was disappointed Yahoo refused a takeover offer that went as high as $47.5 billion back in May. Now he looks lucky.

Yahoo closed Monday with a market value of $18.7 billion, so Ballmer's failure to seal the purchase saved the biggest software maker from a writedown that could have rivaled the industry's most vilified deals. Yahoo ended Monday at $13.49 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Ballmer "might be the luckiest guy in the software industry," said analyst Charles Di Bona at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. "One of the guys here just looked at Yahoo's share price and said to me, 'Nice miss by Microsoft."'

Business & Technology | Microsoft's failed Yahoo bid now looks like lucky miss | Seattle Times Newspaper

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