Posts with tag AOL
Posted Apr 10th 2008 1:00PM by Tech Confidential
Filed under: Deals, Rumors, Engagements
Following this Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) affair is like playing a very high-stakes game of Three Card Monte: Take your eyes off the lucky lady and, pfffft, you're cooked.
As paidContent reported yesterday and the Wall Street Journal confirmed this morning, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is talking with the Internet company about shipping AOL and a trunk full of cash to Yahoo! in exchange for a minority stake in the combined company and a chance to close the door on one of the dumbest mergers in recent memory. AOL would get a lifeline. Beyond escaping Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) $42 billion headlock, in AOL Yahoo! would get what remains a premier player in internet advertising and a company that retains large online audiences for financial, entertainment and other content.
The hardest thing to figure here is what's happening on the other side of the deal, where Microsoft is reportedly lining up News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) for a joint bid for Yahoo!. Under that scenario, Yahoo! would be folded in with Microsoft's MSN portal and News Corp.'s MySpace unit in one mighty online ad-selling, application-bundling, social networking-ing company. That Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is thinking of climbing into business with News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch (pictured) suggests just how worried the software giant is about losing Yahoo!. But Ballmer should think twice. Murdoch has a famously keen instinct for when to buy, sell or hold a business. His interest in unloading MySpace underscores that, with the rise of FaceBook and other social networks, the Web property's best days might be behind it.
Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.
Posted Feb 12th 2008 2:00PM by Tech Confidential
Filed under: Rumors, Value and lack thereof
If
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:
YHOO) is serious about remaining independent, it must of course present a compelling
argument to shareholders why staying single is preferable to
Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:
MSFT) $44.6 billion buyout offer. Unfortunately for Yahoo!, the possibility of
merging with AOL LLC hasn't
elicited the desired level of excitement.
Adam Lehman, a former senior vice president of business affairs and development at AOL and once one of the company's top dealmakers, says that the move to float the AOL rumor showed "there aren't any compelling alternatives being bandied about in Yahoo!'s boardroom," adding that such a deal doesn't match up with Microsoft's offer.
"I don't think there's a clear and compelling vision for how the combination of the assets would drive better results for either," says Lehman, who from 1999 to 2002 led AOL's strategic and dealmaking team supporting the company's international expansion. "They also would need to overcome all the inherent complexities of any large-scale merger just to get the combination functioning."
Continue reading at TechConfidential.com.
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