It seems like Microsoft is again in gearing for another acquisition. In May this year, company pocketed Skype for a whooping $8.5 billion as late June it acquired Prodiance – a software company. Its being reported that company is going to renew its bid to acquire Yahoo. In 2008, Company had made a failed attempt to so the same due to Yahoo’s higher expectations of per share cost.
Currently, Yahoo is going through rough patch as its revenue has been droped from $7208.5 million in 2008 to $4,431.49 million this year. Also, the Market valuation of Yahoo has dipped from $44.6 billion in 2008 to $17.4 billion at present year.
To complete this potential acquisition, Microsoft may seek a partner for the deal, according to Reuters.
However, Microsoft management doesn’t look quite optimistic over such deal as company’s internal management is divided over the decision to renew the bid for Yahoo.
Microsoft already attempted to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion in January, 2008, but the deal was sterile by Yahoo management at that time. Later, Yahoo’s market share declined rapidly and with the expulsion of CEO Jerry Yang in 2009, problems started increasing. Recently, Yahoo had also fired his CEO Carol Bartz who was appointed after the ouster of that time CEO Jerry Yang. Although Microsoft and Yahoo had a deal on July 29th, 2009, in which Microsoft announced that Bing will power to Yahoo’s search service. Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft which was unveiled by company CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28th, 2009. It went fully online on June 3, 2009, with a preview version released on June 1st, 2009.
If Microsoft opts to renew its deal, then it might get Yahoo at a Major discount price. Since at present Yahoo stock is down to $15.67 from $29 at the time when Microsoft bid for first time. It would be best time for Microsoft to purchase Yahoo.
With the news of possible acquisition by Microsoft, share prices of Yahoo has climbed to more than 9 percent.
Yahoo has most of its tie up in Asian countries and most of its assets also depend on Asian assets. Company has tie-up with China based Alibaba Group and holds 40% of stake. It is estimated that company can easily fetch more than $13 billion if it sells Alibaba shares. Interestingly, Alibaba CEO Ma Yun has showed his interest in acquiring Yahoo. There are several others buyers who are also interested in Yahoo acquisition and one of them is News Corp., which recently sold MySpace to Specific Media at $35 Million.
It would be an interesting fact that whoever will be the acquirer, the key player of deal might be Alibaba as it has the power to buy back its shares from yahoo if the control of the company changes and have significant impact over Yahoo’s valuation.
Let’s watch what will be the renew bid for Yahoo by Microsoft and whether this time Microsoft will be successful or not?
