Yahoo! Rejects Another Microsoft Bid.

Yesterday Yahoo! rejected another Microsoft Bid. This time it was driven by Carl Icahn through Microsoft chief, Steve Ballmer.

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US Justice investigate Yahoo and Google.

Competition is a good thing. We all know that. And now, as Microsoft goes on the hunt for corporate partners to help break up Yahoo!, Yahoo! gets scrutinized in a monopoly investigation for holding hands with Google. Read more

Icahn Won’t Add Value To Yahoo

In a letter to shareholders, Yahoo!’s Roy Bostock (Chairman) and Jerry Yang (CEO) have explained that the Microsoft offer will benefit Microsoft more than it will Yahoo!, and that Carl Icahn’s proposed new board won’t add value to the company. Read more

Exodus at Yahoo!

The recent exodus of senior Yahoo! staff has given rise to an interesting blogging exchange. With so many leaving at such a time, we are bound to wonder whether its because they’ve been poached by Microsoft, or Google, or perhaps a secret start-up which Microsoft OR Google can buy later… or whether its simply because Jerry Yang is under pressure to cut costs in order to satisfy the “lack of shareholder value” argument put forward by Carl Icahn.

Reading between the lines, I suspect Icahn has little to do with it, and it is more a case of the Internet protecting its precious own. Only a couple of days ago it was announced that Google were in high-end talks with Yahoo about matters beyond the current advertisement-sharing model. Unlikely to be a all-out takeover, analysts have predicted a rescue package which will start slowly and gather pace for mutual advantage.

Meanwhile, Yahoo’s shareprice has plummeted while Microsoft remain aloof and disinterested about their previous takeover bid.

Yahoo!’s recent departees have included Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake (co-founders of Flickr), Jeff Weiner, Usama Fayyad, Jeremy Zawodny and JR Conlin.

Each of them are giving no solid reasons for their departure, in fact Stewart Butterfield’s strange resignation letter only adds further intrigue to the riddle.

Watch this space… and listen out in a couple of weeks for an announcement of what they’re all up to.

The plot thickens. Do contribute with a comment if you know more…

Icahn’s battle begins

As anticipated, Carl Icahn has begun his proxy battle with Yahoo!

In an open letter to Yahoo chairman, Roy Bostock, Icahn said the board had “acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft. It is obvious that Microsoft’s bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative than Yahoo’s prospects on a stand alone basis.” Read more

Miller Backs Icahn’s Yahoo! Proxy Battle

Further to my post yesterday about the Yahoo! saga, I see that Bill Miller, who as portfolio manager at Legg Mason controls more than 6% of Yahoo!’s shares, welcomed Carl Icahn among the senior shareholders yesterday.

“To the extent he can get the parties back to the table I’d be all in favour of that”, he said.

Miller’s endorsement indicates a significant portion of Yahoo! is leaning towards the Microsoft deal.

It is one thing for a board to have pressure from its shareholders, yet another to have that pressure intensified by a rush of new shareholders.

Yahoo!’s shareprice will start at $27.14 this morning. Interesting to see how it moves through the day…

This is how it stands currently, and a chart of the past 5 days (delayed 15 mins)…:

<a href=”http://finance.yahoo.com” mce_href=”http://finance.yahoo.com”>Yahoo! Finance</a><br /><a href=”http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=YHOO/” mce_href=”http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=YHOO/”>Quote for YHOO/</a>

Although we’re told that Microsoft have given no indication that they will resume talks with Yahoo!, Icahn now has the power to replace the Yahoo! board with one which will be more open to the takeover bid.

Bill Miller’s endorsement means that few would stand in his way if he chose to do that, but he hasn’t got long.

The news over the next few days will be vital to the future of the whole Internet industry. Watch this space…

Carl Icahn Is Raiding Yahoo!

If you’re here seeking ways to get a few hundred more visitors to your web business, great. You’ll find there are plenty of traffic, and list, building tips and techniques here. But spare a moment too, to put this Internet Industry into perspective. Something big is about to happen.

Many senior Internet Industry exectutives and investors are currently waiting to hear the decision of this man…

No matter how small or big you consider your online business to be - (it may be so small that you don’t even think you have one - or so big that you’re even involved in this latest saga I’m discussing here) - either way, I’ll be interested to hear what you think of Carl Icahn’s recent move on Yahoo!

In the 10 days since Microsoft pulled out of of its $47.3bn offer, which valued Yahoo! at $33-a-share, Carl Icahn has bought a stake of approximately 3.6%.

Considering his purchase price was somewhere around $25, a 3.6% stake will have cost him around $1.2 billion.

This is a man with a personal fortune of $14 billion or so, so pitting 1.2 of it on Yahoo! in its current crisis is bold. Perhaps we should expect nothing less from the real-life Gordon Gekko of Wall Street… Who remembers his infamous hostile takeover of TWA in 1985?

But there is something very significant about buying such a stake at this time: It gives him the option to launch a proxy battle and ultimately to remove members from Yahoo!’s board in favour of directors who support his own views.

And guess what they are…

To accept Microsoft’s offer.

If he can sell his Yahoo! shares for $33 then his personal gain will be around half a billion dollars. And it could all happen in a matter of days.

Perhaps its a shame he doesn’t have better intentions for the troubled pioneering search engine than to feed his bulging pockets.

Or perhaps we should just celebrate and cheer-on such flagrant capitalism…

Lets watch what happens over the coming days - if nothing else, his move is certain to bring the players back to the table, and it will make interesting viewing…

What’s your view? What have I missed? Leave your comment below…