14-years ago Yahoo! started in a Silicon Valley trailer. Saturday night Microsoft proved that yes, theirs was indeed bigger and walked away after saying $47.5 billion dollars(!) was enough money and $52 billion was too much to pay.
Today, analysts are saying Mr. Yang has a few months to convince investors that this was the right move, or he may have to accept an even lower offer if Microsoft comes knocking again or… he’s out of a job.
My old firm Price Waterhouse (I know the moniker Coopers hangs off the end but they were the competition in my day) was forced to sell off their consulting business in the post-Enron tighter accounting firm scrutiny days. Computing giant hp then run by Carly Fiorina, offered to buy it for $18 billion dollars. PWC balked, wanted more money and hp just as abruptly walked. They sold the consulting division for about $6 billion dollars to IBM and Jim Schiro lost his job as chairman.
But hey, he landed on his feet running the global insurer Zurich Financial Services and was named by St. John’s University in New York their 2007 Insurance Leader of the Year, so all is not lost Jerry, you too can bounce back.
$45 Billion with a B dollars. For a company with no assets except intellectual property. Wow!
We’re really big on providing some perspective here at Vadimus Post. That would put them at number 50 on the current Fortune 500 list of largest US Corporations ahead of Caterpillar and a fraction behind ALL of Time Warner.
That means Yahoo! is bigger than Lockheed Martin, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, Allstate, Motorola, American Express and Disney. At $52 billion they would surpass Microsoft at number 44 and fall just short of Dow Chemical. I think we can now perhaps understand the reluctance to go above $47 million don’t we Jerry?
Are you out of your mind?!?!?!?
Or better, in the words or Jay Leno when British actor Hugh Grant was caught soliciting a transvestite hooker on Sunset Strip in Hollywood and went on the show, “what were you thinking?”
Hubris over shareholder value is just not smart. Alas, you will soon find that one out for yourself. Pride always goeth before the fall.
Bye-bye pride…
