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Microsoft's Big Yahoo Offer May Be a Ruse

Posted Feb 7, 08 7:26 PM CST in Technology,  Business 

(Newser) – One possible reason for Microsoft’s massive bid for Yahoo: It’s a ploy to block a Yahoo-Amazon team-up, one analyst says. The $44.6 billion offer will never make it past regulators, Trip Chowdhry explains to MarketWatch. But Microsoft insists otherwise: Chowdhry’s report “is completely incorrect,” said a spokeswoman. The move, she says, offers Yahoo employees and shareholders big opportunities.

“We continue to believe that the proposed combination would receive all necessary regulatory approvals” and would be settled in late 2008, the spokeswoman continued. Most analysts agree that regulators would accept the deal. But Chowdhry calls it “strategic deception” that puts Yahoo “in limbo.” If Yahoo accepts, feds “will reject it. If they reject it, shareholders will say, 'What are you doing?’”

Source MarketWatch

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This combination of two photos shows Microsoft founder Bill Gates, left, and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Microsoft Corp. on Friday, Feb. 1, 2008 pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited...   (Associated Press)
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates smiles during his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2008. Google Inc. says Microsoft Corp. could use its proposed $42 billion acquisition...   (Associated Press)
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