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Yahoo investor: Sell to Microsoft for $22 a share

As Yahoo stock reaches new lows, it appears a private equity fund that owns a small percentage of Yahoo's stock has proposed a new deal for selling the company to Microsoft.

Mithras Capital Partners, which reportedly owns more than 1.9 million shares, or 0.14 percent of Yahoo, suggested a new deal Thursday to sell the company to Microsoft for $22 a share, a 74 percent premium on Yahoo's current stock price, Reuters reported. A Mithras Capital partner plans to send a letter proposing the deal to Microsoft and Yahoo on Thursday night, Reuters said.

Under the … Read more

Yahoo shares fall into the $13 range

Updated at 8:33 a.m. PDT, with analysts comments on whether Microsoft might make another bid for Yahoo.

Yahoo shares broke through another psychological barrier Wednesday, edging down into the $13-a-share range.

Yahoo fell as low as $13.62 a share during intraday trading, down more than 6 percent from the previous day's close. Although Yahoo's shares continue to give up ground, the company's performance during the trading session has largely mirrored the broader markets.

With its shares dipping into the $13 range, Yahoo not only sets a new 52-week low but also reaches a trading … Read more

Report: Yahoo-AOL deal possible this month

A Yahoo acquisition of AOL could happen as early as this month, TechCrunch reported Monday, citing sources close to the negotiations.

"It's rumors and speculation, which we don't comment on," Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams said. Update 2:30 p.m. PDT: AOL also declined to comment.

According to the report, Yahoo would buy AOL's content business, but not its dial-up subscription business. Time Warner had separated the two, and given Yahoo's online-publishing and advertising interests, it would be no surprise to see Yahoo pass over that dwindling asset.

The possibility grew out of Microsoft's unwelcome attempt to acquire Yahoo, … Read more

Yahoo price target cut to $21 a share

Yahoo's price target was snipped to $21 a share from $24 on Monday by a Wall Street analyst, following the Internet search pioneer's confirmation that it is delaying its controversial search-advertising deal with Google.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay noted in a research note that despite reports that Yahoo is in talks with Time Warner, the probability of a deal between the media conglomerate's struggling AOL unit and Yahoo remains relatively low, in part due to antitrust regulators' concerns about the proposed Yahoo-Google deal.

In his research noted, Lindsay stated:

Regulators might not allow the AOL-GOOG … Read more

Yahoo to cut its workforce?

Updated at 2:21 p.m. PDT, with information on Yahoo's stock performance and a letter sent by Sen. Herb Kohl to the head of the antitrust unit for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Yahoo is contemplating another round of layoffs, according to a report in Silicon Alley Insider.

Any carnage count would likely be less than 20 percent of the workforce, SIA notes, citing people familiar with the company's financial health. According to the report:

While our Henry Blodget has called on Yahoo to can 3,018 people (that's more than 20 percent of the … Read more

Analyst sees desperation in Microsoft SearchPerks

Microsoft's effort to woo Internet searchers with financial incentives strikes one Wall Street analyst as a "desperate move" that will make little headway.

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced SearchPerks, a frequent-flier-like program that gives searchers one "ticket" for every search they do via Microsoft's Live Search engine.

To Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, though, SearchPerks is just another sign that Microsoft lacks a "Plan B" strategy to gain share against Google without buying Yahoo.

"Our preliminary reaction is that SearchPerks will likely result (in) a sub-standard outcome," Aggarwal wrote in a … Read more

Consumer group asks senator to intervene in Google-Yahoo deal

Update at 10:43 a.m. PDT: Additional information added relating to Google's FAQ Web site.

Google and Yahoo's controversial search advertising partnership deal took another hit Thursday, as consumer and public interest group Center for Digital Democracy fired off an opposition letter (PDF) to the chairman of the Senate antitrust committee.

The Center for Digital Democracy asked Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), to call on the Department of Justice to oppose the partnership between the two companies, or at a minimum establish "meaningful safeguards" to the arrangement.

The organization, which is known for taking positions on … Read more

Yahoo's board (the Carl Icahn version) holds first meeting

Yahoo's board gathered Tuesday in a rather subdued affair, yielding no new major decisions. But it did provide a cultural introduction to the company's adversaries-turned-directors Carl Icahn, Frank Biondi, and John Chapple, said a source familiar with the company.

Icahn, who earlier this year launched a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo's board before settling for three seats on the 11-member board, is no stranger to arriving at boardrooms as an interloper.

But in some of those cases, such as ImClone Systems, he came armed with specific ideas of how to change the company's operations and soon … Read more

DOJ lays out concerns to Yahoo and Google, no lawsuit threats yet

Federal antitrust regulators have clearly laid out their concerns to Yahoo and Google regarding their controversial search advertising agreement, but discussions of potential remedies have yet to come up, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

Antitrust regulators with the Department of Justice have largely narrowed their concerns into two buckets, one centering on the potential affect on advertising pricing in the short run and to what extent there would be a negative impact on the industry, and the second being will the agreement eventually lead to Yahoo exiting the search advertising business altogether, the source noted.

Currently, the … Read more