As Kultofcows mentioned, it is Jerry Yang and the rest of Yahoo's management who have rejected Microsoft's bid. Also Microsoft has responded to Yahoo's rebuffs and characterize their bid as "full and fair" and are now looking to go forward with a proxy battle in an attempt to vote out Yang and the rest of the directors and instead vote in others who will accept Microsoft's offer.
Shareholders will indeed get to have their say soon, either they vote for Yang and maintain the status quo which would likely plunge Yahoo's stock back into the teens or they vote against Yang which effectively will be a vote to sell and to accept Microsoft's offer. It seems that Microsoft is confident that the majority Yahoo's shareholders do indeed want to sell and are willing to take their offer if they are going this route.
In my opinion there are many similarities between the EA/Take-Two deal and the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. In both cases industry giants are attempting to buy struggling companies who have great assets but have unfortunately been poorly mismanaged. In both cases the target has refused all previous bids and wish to remain independent. In both cases the giants have decided to go forward with hostile unsolicited bids at huge 50-60% premiums over the market price, premiums that I believe both Yahoo and Take-Two shareholders will be unable to refuse in spite of their current management's wishes.
On a side note I think this is good timing by EA since most other potential bidders are right now out of the picture. Activision, their main rival, is tied up with their own mega-merger with Blizzard. Ubisoft the only other western gaming company sizable enough to possibly make a bid I feel is still too small, not to mention that EA already owns about 20% of Ubisoft and could likely scuttle any such deal. Most private equity companies right now will be unable to get the financing and look to be unable to mount a rival bid. The only other possible bidder is perhaps News Corp or some other large media conglomerate but it seems unlikely to me that they would be willing to take on a troubled company outside of their field of expertise. In my humble opinion this deal is likely to go through one way or the other.
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As Kultofcows mentioned, it is Jerry Yang and the rest of Yahoo's management who have rejected Microsoft's bid. Also Microsoft has responded to Yahoo's rebuffs and characterize their bid as "full and fair" and are now looking to go forward with a proxy battle in an attempt to vote out Yang and the rest of the directors and instead vote in others who will accept Microsoft's offer.
Shareholders will indeed get to have their say soon, either they vote for Yang and maintain the status quo which would likely plunge Yahoo's stock back into the teens or they vote against Yang which effectively will be a vote to sell and to accept Microsoft's offer. It seems that Microsoft is confident that the majority Yahoo's shareholders do indeed want to sell and are willing to take their offer if they are going this route.
In my opinion there are many similarities between the EA/Take-Two deal and the Microsoft/Yahoo deal. In both cases industry giants are attempting to buy struggling companies who have great assets but have unfortunately been poorly mismanaged. In both cases the target has refused all previous bids and wish to remain independent. In both cases the giants have decided to go forward with hostile unsolicited bids at huge 50-60% premiums over the market price, premiums that I believe both Yahoo and Take-Two shareholders will be unable to refuse in spite of their current management's wishes.
On a side note I think this is good timing by EA since most other potential bidders are right now out of the picture. Activision, their main rival, is tied up with their own mega-merger with Blizzard. Ubisoft the only other western gaming company sizable enough to possibly make a bid I feel is still too small, not to mention that EA already owns about 20% of Ubisoft and could likely scuttle any such deal. Most private equity companies right now will be unable to get the financing and look to be unable to mount a rival bid. The only other possible bidder is perhaps News Corp or some other large media conglomerate but it seems unlikely to me that they would be willing to take on a troubled company outside of their field of expertise. In my humble opinion this deal is likely to go through one way or the other.