According to Search Engine Watch the Yahoo buyout of AOL may be back on with the Yahoo board approving talks with Time Warner. The buyout/merger saga has been going on for an age now with many seeing it as the only way to get a true competitor to Google. Is it finally going to happen? (previous post here)
It looks like Microsoft might be refusing to take no for an answer in their bid to buy out Yahoo! in a bid worth $40Bn. After having their bid rejecting because the Yahoo! board believed it significantly undervalued their brand and investment in technology Microsoft are rumoured to be responding by attempting to ignite a proxy fight to take over the company. Such a proxy fight would see Microsoft nominate a group of directors sympathetic to a deal for shareholders to vote on at Yahoo’s annual meeting. According to Morningstar this is Microsoft using the carrot and the stick approach, just both at the same time! The carrot of the share price, 62% above trading price, and the stick which comes in the form of the threat of a proxy battle. The drama continues and maybe Microsoft will get their way after all!
The saga of who will buy/merge with Yahoo continues with the announcement they are in talks with AOL about a potential merger to take on the digital world. It is difficult to see how two very similar operations could effectively pull together to take on the market as is pointed out by Mashable. They are both a web portal offering search functionality, display advertising and personal email so what a merger would achieve is slightly confusing unless the both of them are willing to merge their systems for the greater good of taking on Google and Microsoft in their respective strong holds. The only benefit I could see is if by merging their two media selling/buying operations they could aim to offer the advertiser greater reach through one point of call but this is a tenuous link at best. Maybe they have something else up their sleeve whcih could surpries us all but for me there is little benefit in such a merger.
