What’s next for Yahoo?
TEXT OF STORY
Renita Jablonski: Yahoo’s CEO thinks his company is worth more than $47.5 billion. This weekend, Microsoft even agreed to raise that offer for the Internet giant. Jerry Yang said he was thinking something along the lines of $53 billion. Microsoft pulled the offer altogether. This morning, shares in Yahoo fell almost 20 percent overseas. Marketplace’s Lisa Napoli is standing by. Lisa, I hear Yang and his team were putting up some high fives when Microsoft withdrew its offer, but I can’t imagine Yahoo shareholders celebrating.
Lisa Napoli: Yes. Renita, it makes no sense that anybody would be excited to turn down $40 billion. And there’s already one shareholder lawsuit in the works. And most people are saying that this is a miscalculation on Yang’s part to turn back the offer. That this wasn’t an undervaluation of the company.
Renita Jablonski: All right, so while today the big question is going to be how low will Yahoo’s stock price go, what about what’s next for Yahoo as a company moving forward?
Napoli: Well, now everybody’s looking at this as one giant square dance. Who is Yahoo going to jump into bed with now to save itself? What will Microsoft do to further its strategy down the road? And, of course, it’s all the same cast of characters we’ve been hearing about for three months now. You hear AOL bandied about. You hear Google bandied about. I’m sure we’ll hear News Corp. bandied about before it’s all over. The question is who’s going to end up working with the other.
Jablonski: There are also a lot of questions about leadership here for Steve Ballmer the CEO of Microsoft and for Jerry Yang CEO of Yahoo. What challenges fact both of them?
Napoli: As far as Ballmer goes, this is seen as, you know, one of his first big moves in the role of CEO at Microsoft. Some people say it was very measured and deliberate and thoughtful for him to walk away. Each of them are now in a position where they have to justify what they’ve done. And that can’t be easy, but that’s why they get paid the big bucks.
Jablonski: Lisa Napoli reports on all things tech for us. Lisa, thanks so much.
Napoli: Thank you, Renita.
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