Yahoo CEO still open to higher Microsoft bid

Facing shareholder
ire and a plunging
stock price, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said Yahoo board members would still sell
the company to Microsoft or another suitor if the price is right.

According to Bloomberg, Yang said late Monday that Yahoo would be open to a
sale as long as the company is not "undervalued" by any potential
bidders.

"We've always felt the Yahoo platform has been undervalued or underappreciated
by the marketplace,'' he said in an interview with Bloomberg. "Our most
important goal is to make sure we have a long-term competitive position."

According to a separate report in Financial Times, Yang said it was Microsoft,
not Yahoo, that was unwilling to complete the deal; his company wanted to continue
negotiations on a price.

"We did not say it was a take-it-or-leave-it number in the sense that
we would never negotiate any more,” he said in an interview with Financial
Times. “We were totally willing to do a transaction, and they walked away."

On Saturday, Microsoft withdrew its bid to acquire Yahoo after failing to agree
to a price even after Microsoft raised its bid from about US$31 per share, or
about $44.6 billion, to $33 a share, which was about $5 billion more than the
original offer.

Yang's comments indicate he is backtracking on the position he held during
Microsoft's three-month attempt to purchase Yahoo, and they come as the Internet
company faces pressure from shareholders who think the company was foolish to
pass on the offer.

Yang was reportedly against the deal from the start, and Yahoo made various
moves during the three months to avoid an acquisition, such as mulling a partnership
with AOL and striking a deal with Google to test Google's AdSense for Search
service as one of the Web publishers that carry pay-per-click text ads from
Google.

Yahoo also attempted to buy time when Microsoft threatened to mount a proxy
battle for the company. For example, on March 5, Yahoo lifted the following
week's deadline for nominating directors to its board, an attempt to discourage
Microsoft from trying to replace the current board with members willing to approve
its Yahoo acquisition bid.

The company also unveiled a flurry of product and strategy announcements in
the months following Microsoft's bid, pointing out that each initiative proved
it could continue go it alone as an independent company.

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine