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Posted
Aug 22 2008, 01:37 AM
by
Charley Blaine
Rating:
Here's something the top management of Yahoo may wish nobody noticed.
The stock is now lower than its $19.18 close on Jan. 31, the day before Microsoft launched its $33-a-share, $44.6 billion offer for the Internet company. (Microsoft is the publisher of MSN Money.)
Yahoo closed Thursday at $19.11. On Wednesday, it closed at $19.17.
While Yahoo can say it fought off Microsoft and a potential proxy fight from activist Carl Icahn, the victory has been costly. And not just because the company spent $36 million waging the fight
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Posted
Jul 25 2008, 05:56 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
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China now has more people online than the U.S. -- 253 million to be exact. The China Internet Network Information Center says that the number of internet users was up 56% from June last year.
The AP writes that "The United States had an estimated 223.1 million Internet users in June, according to Nielsen Online." Given the Chinese grow rate, the gulf is likely to get much larger over the next several years.
Online businesses on the mainland are still small by U.S. standards, which gives companies like Yahoo and Microsoft a chance to compete with Google while the industry is still immature
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Posted
Jun 16 2008, 11:34 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Does Yahoo hate its shareholders? That's being suggested by The New York Times' Joe Nocera, who sent CEO Jerry Yang a nastygram over the weekend. Nocera writes: "In fact, Jerry, as a board member since Yahoo went public, it has always been your job to look out for Yahoo’s shareholders. But we sure wouldn’t know that from the way you’ve acted these past months. I haven’t seen this much contempt for shareholders since Robert Nardelli ran Home Depot."
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Posted
Jun 13 2008, 09:41 AM
by
Kim Peterson
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Any way you look at it, yesterday was a dark day for Yahoo. The stock crumbled 10% after the company confirmed a Microsoft deal was dead. Three key Yahoos announced they were leaving, adding to the ongoing employee exodus. Yahoo announced an advertising sales deal with Google, but it wasn't significant enough to sway angry shareholders. The company's stock isn't faring any better today -- down 6% on heavy volume to $22.14 at 11 a.m. PST.
We won't see the full implications of Yahoo's moves for a while. Clearly, Yahoo needed breathing room, and outsourcing some search business to Google accomplishes that. Yahoo gets Microsoft and Carl Icahn off its back and can figure out a new strategy -- and it gets a new source of short-term revenue. But Yahoo has let Google in the front door, and now risks the possibility
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Posted
Jun 12 2008, 01:04 PM
by
Kim Peterson
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Some of that stampeding sound on the Street today came from Yahoo investors running for the exits. Shares of the company are down 11% on huge volume to $23.37 after the company said all merger talks with Microsoft are dead. Microsoft had zero interest in renewing any talks, according to a Yahoo statement. Microsoft shares are up 4% today to $28.29.
Yahoo and Google are reportedly set to announce some sort of partnership this afternoon. Stay tuned.
Update: Yahoo hired Google in a nonexclusive deal to sell some online ads in the U.S. and Canada.
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Posted
May 05 2008, 06:21 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Pegging Yahoo's potential financial exposure from shareholder lawsuits after it turned down an offer of about $33 from Microsoft is hard. It starts with the difference between the offer and where the stock falls after the rejection. That price could be $22 or lower. Investors would have lost $12 billion, and perhaps more.
Yahoo is lucky, if one can call it that. Proving damages beyond the actual financial set-back to shareholders will be hard. Investors were not "damaged" as much as they simply lost money.
The other factor to Yahoo's advantage is that some groups of stockholders may not sue it at all. That would include the company's founders. Along with some large shareholder who supported the company walking away, probably 20% of the stock is in hands of people who would take no action. But, large class actions suits, especially if they are making progress, could be joined by that majority of the stockholder base who held shares three months ago as well as when the offer was rejected.
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Posted
Apr 11 2008, 12:09 PM
by
Kim Peterson
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My, how things can change in a week. Last Friday, Microsoft was putting the screws to Yahoo, telling Reuters it was "evaluating" its $31-a-share bid for the company because Yahoo has dropped in value. This week, a furious round of wheeling and dealing has given Yahoo the edge. I have to hand it to CEO Jerry Yang. His flirtation with AOL and Google is putting incredible pressure on Microsoft to raise its offer. The market seems to like where all this is headed: Yahoo shares are
up slightly from where they started the week and closed today at $28.34. The Street seems to think a Microsoft acquisition is still the most likely scenario, and Yahoo shares are up because of a general belief that Yang can extract more money out of the deal. And while things today may appear murkier than ever, this corporate drama seems to be careening (wildly, perhaps) to some sort of closure, possibly in the next week.
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Posted
Mar 14 2008, 12:23 PM
by
Kim Peterson
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Yahoo seems to be dropping its anyone-but-Microsoft merger attitude. Senior executives from both companies met on Monday to discuss Microsoft's cash-and-stock acquisition offer, although "discuss" might be too strong a word, since the Yahoos "mostly listened," according to the WSJ.
Yahoo had a duty to shareholders to at least hear Microsoft out, now that its list of possible alternatives is down to pretty much zero. AOL is busy with its $850 million acquisition of social networking site Bebo. Rupert Murdoch says News Corp. is staying out. Google lost its initial enthusiasm about thwarting the bid.
It's unclear how serious the meeting was. No bankers attended and no negotiation took place. We don't even know if the CEOs were there. But the official silence has been broken. Yahoo shares fell nearly 3% today to $26.71 on the news, and Microsoft shares are down nearly 2.3% to $27.96.
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Posted
Feb 26 2008, 09:10 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Google is down almost 7% today to just above $452. That is less than $20 from its 52-week low. Twenty dollars might seem like a lot, but the shares would only have to fall another 4% to get there.
Google traded at over $747 last November.
With the news that internet advertising revenue was up only 25% last year and some evidence that small advertisers who use Google AdSense may be getting pinched by the economic slowdown, the chances of the search company hitting its $4.68 EPS target for the quarter do not look as good as they did a month ago. Recent data also show that the search company's click-through rates on ads are flat. They have been moving up for months.
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Posted
Feb 12 2008, 12:39 PM
by
Kim Peterson
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Citigroup's Mark Mahaney has revised his what-will-happen analysis for Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo. The Vegas oddsmakers should get in on this! Here's Mahaney's latest, with my thoughts included:
Outcome #1: Microsoft ups its bid and Yahoo accepts. Probability = 55%
I'd put the odds a little higher than that. Maybe 65% with the noise coming from Yahoo shareholders lately. A fund manager from Legg Mason, the second-biggest Yahoo shareholder, said in a letter this week that "it will be hard for YHOO to come up with alternatives that deliver more value than MSFT will ultimately be willing to pay." Analyst Marianne Wolk of Susquehanna gives this scenario a 75% probability.
Outcome #2: Another bidder gets Yahoo. Probability = 5%
Chances are slim. The big potential bidders have backed out, and Google can't bid because of antitrust concerns. There is a rumor that private equity was looking at buying Yahoo for $23-$25 a share before Microsoft jumped in. That price is long gone now.
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