Doug LaRue wrote:
So how is Microsoft stock to go up if they have no capability to make profits and only a long long history of losing money? That would be very silly of Yahoo shareholders to think MSFT stock is going to go up faster and wouldn't they already have MSFT stock if that was what they thought?
Um, what universe do *you* live in? Go take a look at what Icahn is and does.
Icahn doesn't care. Icahn falls into one of two camps: 1) bought a bunch of stock on the advance information and is looking to cash on the inflate from speculation or 2) already has a bunch of stock and sees no other way out. He's probably mostly in category 2.
I hope they noticed that MSFT stock value dropped since the initial offer and Microsoft had to recalculate the numbers in their 2nd offer. Not a good sign if this really is the concern of Yahoo stock holders outside of the Icahn shares and his friends.
It's not unless you actually believe that Yahoo stock is going to somehow get back up to $40 per share. That just isn't going to happen.
Webmail and portals are ossified. No one is going to change from their current email/home page to another system given the very tiny differences between them. Search really is good enough. People don't use Google because it's better than Yahoo. People use Google/Yahoo/MSN because they got used to it. Making more than incremental changes in that now requires lots of monetary outlay.
In my opinion, even Google is highly overvalued; there's just nowhere else for the money to go.
This has more to do with a friend of Microsoft handing over a company and making money on the handoff and not much more. I don't know what Icahn has to do with Microsoft but he is doing their bidding here as Steve Balmer already said he'd take over the YHOO board. Only now, Icahn is doing it instead.
Well, it's a combination of things. Ballmer almost certainly predicted this. It's a 2-for-1: A) maybe they get Yahoo up front or B) they provoke a proxy fight that will occupy top management and they get it on the backend on the cheap.
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