mergers-acquisitions

Longtime Microsoft board member Jon Shirley to step down

Microsoft announced Tuesday that its longtime board member and former executive Jon Shirley has decided not to run for re-election at the company's annual shareholders meeting.

Shirley, who served as Microsoft's president and chief operating officer for seven years through 1990, is retiring from the board after 25 years. He will remain on the board until the shareholders meeting in November.

"Having turned 70 years old this year, I'm at a point in my life where I want to reduce my professional commitments and allow more time pursuing some of my personal interests," Shirley said … Read more

Electronic Arts extends Take-Two Interactive tender offer deadline

Electronic Arts announced Tuesday it was extending its tender offer for rival game developer Take-Two Interactive Software to July 18, marking its third extension since launching its hostile bid in March.

EA, which is currently offering Take-Two investors $25.74 a share, said nearly 6.14 million shares have been tendered in, representing approximately 8 percent of Take-Two's shares.

In early morning trading, Take-Two's stock hovered at $26.35 per share.

EA's previous deadline for its tender offer was June 16, which came roughly a week after Take-Two reported better than expected quarterly earnings, thanks to its … Read more

Court nixes expedited trial on Yahoo severance plans

A Delaware Chancery Court on Monday denied a fast-track schedule to hold a trial on whether to invalidate Yahoo's controversial employee severance plans, prior to the company's annual shareholders meeting on August 1, according to a Reuters report.

Two Detroit pension funds, which had filed a shareholders lawsuit against Yahoo over its handling of the unsolicited buyout bid by Microsoft and subsequent withdrawal, had been seeking to invalidate Yahoo's employees severance plans. In the lawsuit, the shareholders allege the severance plans potentially make any change of control in ownership or board composition a costly venture.

The shareholders … Read more

Borland: A big lesson

Nestled in the redwood trees of Northern California's Santa Cruz Mountains is one of the most beautiful office facilities you'll ever see. The impeccably landscaped grounds include ponds, tennis courts, a swimming pool, an auditorium, a fitness center, a large outdoor eating area, and loads of light throughout the open-style architecture.

The facility even has its own exit-entrance ramp off the northbound side of highway 17.

Philippe Kahn, the French-born CEO of Borland International, spent nearly $120 million of capital to build the Scotts Valley campus for Borland's 1,200 employees. When the new corporate headquarters opened in 1993, it was full to capacity. It was all downhill from there, but I don't think Kahn knew it at the time.

You see, in September of 1991, Kahn acquired Ashton-Tate for $440 million. To say the merger would prove to be the biggest mistake of his career would be a gross understatement. It was disastrous, as both company's product lines stalled and Ashton-Tate's dBASE database management program completely missed the transition to Windows. … Read more

Yahoo to unseal opposition court papers in shareholder lawsuit case

Update 10:30 a.m. PDT: Yahoo plans to unseal its court filing Monday.

Yahoo investors who are hoping to get a glimpse into the company's legal brief filed Monday to oppose holding a trial to remove its controversial employee severance plan will have to wait for an hour or so, according to a source familiar with the filing.

Yahoo's brief seeks to oppose a motion made in a shareholder lawsuit, which asks the court to hold a trial to invalidate the company's employees severance plans and to hold the trial before Yahoo's annual shareholders' meeting … Read more

Activist shareholder calls for Icahn-Yahoo combo slate

Amid much debate over Yahoo's future, activist shareholder Eric Jackson offered his own suggested slate of directors Monday, which includes four from fellow activist Carl Icahn's slate and five from Yahoo's.

Jackson, who outlined his "Third Option for Yahoo" in a column in TheStreet.com, suggested the combo slate for several reasons.

Investors may be reluctant to throw out all of Yahoo's nine-member board, given that Microsoft has not publicly stated any interest in making another bid for the search pioneer. That means that whoever is elected to Yahoo's board would likely have … Read more

Icahn notes Yahoo-Google deal maybe worthwhile

Update: June 16 at 7:15 a.m., with comments from a source on whether a hostile bid for a portion of a company's assets, not the whole company, is doable.

If Microsoft was holding out any hope of enlisting Yahoo investor activist Carl Icahn to its side of the table with a partial acquisition of the search pioneer's business, Icahn apparently isn't budging.

Icahn, as quoted in a Reuters report Sunday, said he believed Yahoo's advertising partnership with Google "might have some merit."

Icahn's comments follow Yahoo's statement Thursday that talks with Microsoft have come to an end, after it determined selling its search business to the software giant was not in its best long-term interests … Read more

Analysts don't rule out a Microsoft-Yahoo deal just yet

Updated June 13 at 8:35 a.m. PDT with analyst comments on the Google-Yahoo search ad deal.

Shares of Yahoo continued to get hammered in early-morning market trading on Friday, in a sign that its Google search ad announcement wasn't enough to boomerang its share price northward following Microsoft's exit from buyout talks.

Yahoo was down 6.46 percent to $22 a share in early morning trading. On Thursday, Yahoo ended the day at $23.52 per share, down more than 10 percent.

But the market reaction that Microsoft has left the building and thrown away the … Read more

Icahn to drop Yahoo proxy fight, given Microsoft's pullout?

Yahoo and Microsoft talks are going away, but don't expect billionaire investor Carl Icahn to do likewise, said one source familiar with the investor activist.

Icahn, who last month launched a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo's board and push the two companies to merge, is likely to forge ahead with his active proxy fight campaign, the source said. Icahn is hoping to woo Yahoo investors to elect his dissident slate at Yahoo's annual shareholders meeting on August 1.

"I can't see Carl walking away. Some guys in tech think they're tough. They don't … Read more