Yahoo Rejects New Deal From Microsoft,Carl Icahn

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Yahoo is being attacked from two sides: One from Microsoft, who wants to buy the company; and the other from Carl Icahn, a Yahoo shareholder whose only aim is to make a profit. Now Microsoft and Icahn are working together to make this happen.

Microsoft initially offered to buy Yahoo at a price of $33 per share months ago, but Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang rejected the offer. Now Microsoft has come up with another offer with interest to buy only the Yahoo search engine. Icahn wants to buy the rest and sell it to the highest bidders. This was the offer given to Yahoo on Friday and the company was given a 24-hour deadline to respond.

Today, Yahoo rejected the offer and told Microsoft to buy it entirely for $33 per share instead of splitting the company to pieces. But Microsoft has no intention of going back to that offer and now it just wants the Yahoo search engine.

Previously, Icahn complained about the $33 per-share offer from Microsoft, according to Yahoo. He said this offer will eliminate Microsoft’s need to buy the whole thing. But Icahn has changed position; he feels he can make more money by selling other properties of Yahoo like Flickr.com, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Del.ici.ous, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo News, etc.

Yahoo had no other choice but to reject this new offer from Microsoft and Icahn. The statement said the current deal it has with Google is much better than this offer which doesn’t provide adequate value for Yahoo shareholders. The statement also calls the offer “absurd and irresponsible,” saying Microsoft and Icahn would have plans for the future of the company without working with Yahoo management.

Yahoo did the right thing, in my opinion. Microsoft and Icahn say they are helping Yahoo, but in reality they just want to break it into pieces and share the spoils. Do you know any big company like Yahoo that would allow it to be broken into pieces and sold to different buyers?

After Bill Gates' exit from Microsoft, Steve Ballmer is trying to act tough. And Icahn has no plans to help Yahoo in the future -- he is interested only in profit. I hope the Yahoo shareholders sees that.