Microsoft Offers to Acquire Yahoo!
The rumor has come to fruition. Today Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO announced:
“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,”
Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for $44.6bn in cash and shares.
The offer, contained in a letter to Yahoo’s board, is 62% above Yahoo’s closing share price on Thursday. Google shares fell $46.55, or 8.3 percent, to $517.95 in premarket trading after the Mountain View-based company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed analyst estimates.
Google, captured 56 percent of U.S. Web queries in December, almost double the combined share for Yahoo and Microsoft, which attracted 18 percent and 13 percent, according to New York-based Nielsen Online. Searches will account for 37 percent of the $27.5 billion U.S. online advertising market in 2008, estimates research firm EMarketer Inc.
This is an unsolicited offer subjected to the board and stock holder approval. The first offer from Microsoft was rejected in late 2006.
[Via Yahoo! News]
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