The Hindu Business Line : Microsoft offers to acquire Yahoo! for $44.6 bn

Yahoo! said its Board of Directors would evaluate the unsolicited proposal "carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo!'s strategic plans and pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders."

The Microsoft CEO, Mr Steve Ballmer, in a statement, said the deal would help both the companies to "become better positioned to compete in the online services market".

Microsoft said its $31 per share offer represented a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion of Yahoo!. The offer represents a 62 per cent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on January 31.

Microsoft's proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock.

"Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure," said Mr Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. "The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own."

"We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Mr Ballmer.

"The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs," said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft.

The offer was disclosed first in a letter sent to the Yahoo! Board of Directors on January 31 by Mr Ballmer.

At 9.36 am ET at the Nasdaq, Microsoft was down 5.25 per cent; Yahoo up 49.5 per cent and Google was down 7.18 per cent.

Timeline

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Jun 15, 2007 Microsoft, Yahoo also face antitrust review for ad buy deals

May 13, 2007 Still no sign of a triple alliance to take on Google's might

May 11, 2006: Yahoo rejects Microsoft offer

May 7, 2007 What a Microsoft-Yahoo merger means for Google

May 5, 2007 Yahoo! stock jumps on Microsoft news

May 4, 2007 Analysts cynical of Microsoft-Yahoo deal

May 4, 2007 Reports: Microsoft and Yahoo end on-again off-again talks to combine forces

Apr 25, 2007 Google passes Microsoft, Yahoo as most-visited site