Yang: Yahoo open to renewed Microsoft talks
Published: 06 May 2008 08:51 BST
Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang is reportedly still open to negotiations with Microsoft, if the software giant is prepared to improve its takeover offer.
Microsoft's final bid for the web giant was $33 (£17) per share, while Yahoo held out for $37, or something close to that number. On Saturday, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer decided not to continue the courtship. With Yahoo flaunting its possible ad-serving deal with Google and holding out for an 80 percent premium over its 31 January closing stock price, Yahoo is pushing for the best price it can, experts said.
According to Reuters, Yang said it was Microsoft that decided to cease negotiations. With shareholder lawsuits piling up in the wake of the failed deal, the stock suffering and no other suitor in sight, Yang may now be looking for a rapprochement with Ballmer.
"If they have anything new to say, we would be open... I am more than willing to listen," Yang told Reuters.
Yahoo also announced late on Monday night that it will hold its annual shareholders meeting on 3 July. The move gives Yahoo shareholders who want to push on with the Microsoft deal 10 days to nominate directors who will pursue this course of action on their behalf.
One proxy solicitor said Yahoo would be wise to set its shareholders meeting as soon as possible, because it would trigger a 10-day deadline for any shareholders to react and assemble opposition candidates to run against Yahoo's board of directors at its next annual meeting.
Yahoo's full board of 10 directors' seats is coming up for re-election to one-year terms at the annual shareholders meeting. In March, Yahoo extended the deadline for shareholders to name opposition candidates, in a move to delay Microsoft from launching a proxy fight with its own slate of opposition candidates.
When Microsoft withdrew its $47bn bid for Yahoo, Ballmer stated in a letter to Yang that he had no plans to launch a hostile proxy fight to unseat Yahoo's board or to go directly to Yahoo investors with a tender offer.
Although any shareholders who want to run candidates against Yahoo's nominees for the board will be able to put their names to Yahoo's corporate secretary by the close of business on 15 May, proxy solicitors and attorneys who specialise in mergers and acquisitions said it would be difficult to unseat Yahoo's board at present.
The main purpose of unseating Yahoo's entire board would be to remove Yahoo's anti-takeover measure, called a shareholder rights plan, or "poison pill".
CNET News.com's Dawn Kawamoto contributed to this article.
Credit: Yang courts Microsoft: Show me the money from CNET News.com
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