Microsoft Could Walk Away From Yahoo!, Or Drop Offer (YHOO, MSFT)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The heat between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) wanting to acquire Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) may be cooling.  Or it may just be a negotiating tool to show Jerry Yang that he’s up the creek with no paddle if Microsoft just quits its offer.

The talk is now all over after-hours that Microsoft may be reevaluating its buyout offer for the #2 search player.  This is after the companies met earlier this week to no avail.  The report is being tied to Dow Jones Newswire although this started coming out all over that this might want to still be considered as hearsay.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) shares are up almost 2% to $29.70 in after-hours trading and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) shares are down nearly 5% to $27.01 in after-hours trading.

We have covered this on numerous angles before.  But the angle that Jerry Yang better be taking into consideration is what angle shareholders are going to put his head into the guillotine at if he lets the offer die.  Yang and $30 YHOO on its own is a long ways off.  Shareholders have been more than frustrated.  His head will roll over this and his "Chief Yahoo!" title will change to "Chief SNAFU." 

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Jon C. Ogg
April 4, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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