Yahoo Board To Meet Friday, Decide Nothing
Yahoo’s board is meeting again on Friday, the WSJ says (YHOO). But they won’t be deciding anything. Decisions may come next week–when the AOL (TWX) and Google (GOOG) negotiations are farther along and there’s still a week and a half left on Microsoft’s clock (MSFT).
Other nuggets from the encyclopedic report by KEVIN J. DELANEY, MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG and JESSICA E. VASCELLARO:
- “Many” Yahoo insiders still think selling to Microsoft is the most likely outcome (so do we). Jerry probably isn’t among them.
- The Yahoo board will talk about the AOL merger plan, but some Yahoo shareholders have reportedly already dissed it (Legg Mason’s Bill Miller, for one, is on record saying he thinks there really are no Microsoft alternatives). The AOL valuation under consideration is $10 billion, which seems fair.
- Microsoft insiders pooh-pooh the idea that they’ll do something with News Corp. They don’t need Murdoch, they say (and they’re right). And Murdoch’s only talking to them because Yahoo refused to value MySpace, et al, at $10-$15 billion (thank goodness).
- If Microsoft did end up doing something with News Corp, they would probably cut Yahoo in half: Microsoft would take the “search and advertising technology, while News Corp. would control everything else, including Yahoo’s broad array of online media properties.” This would “allow Microsoft to focus on the software and technical underpinnings of online services while offloading content and information — historically weak points for the software company — to News Corp., which specializes in that realm. “All Microsoft cares about is search and the ad engine,” one person familiar with the situation said.”
- News Corp. desperately wants a seat at the table because some execs think MySpace’s growth has peaked (translation: they want to dump it while they can). Some also believe that, despite Murdoch’s denials, he wants out of Google deal.
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