Microsoft and Yahoo: Second Date, Still No Kiss

Microsoft and Yahoo execs met again this week, but the software maker refused to raise its takeover offer and the two sides failed to make progress toward an agreement. Yahoo won’t enter formal negotiations unless Microsoft increases its Jan. 31 cash-and-stock bid, then worth $44.6 billion and now about $42 billion, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft seems to be waiting for the troubled economy to cause Yahoo shareholders to pressure their board and management to reconsider the offer, which the Yahoo board rejected as too low. Microsoft’s bid amounted to $31 per share at the time it was made, but its slipping share price means the bid now worth about $29 a share. (More Microsoft stories.)