After a 15 percent drop in its stock that followed Microsoft’s announced abandonment of its Yahoo takeover bid, Yahoo could be right back in the middle of another deal.
Monday’s declines ended with a little good news for Yahoo. Trading that pushed shares down to $24.37 saw some positive movement in after hours trading. That activity moved Yahoo up 90 cents ahead of today’s open.
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang had his positive moment in the wake of Microsoft offering, then walking away from, a $33 per share offer. Investors pummeled Yahoo in trading, but not nearly as far down as some suspected could happen.
Yang isn’t putting up a ‘for sale’ sign on Yahoo, but if Microsoft or anyone else wants to talk business, he said in a Bloomberg report he’s willing to hear them out:
While the Sunnyvale, California-based company isn’t for sale, it would listen, “should somebody else come back someday and want to buy the company,” he said.
“The most important way to move the stock is to execute better,” said Yang, 39. “What I am going to do is be very proactive and discuss with as many shareholders as possible in the upcoming weeks or months about our strategy, where we are in the business, how we can execute.”
Yang and Yahoo president Sue Decker did this in prior weeks, claiming they could make significant gains over the next two years independent of a Microsoft acquisition. Consensus opinion at the time indicated shareholders were lukewarm at best to their strategic plans
Yahoo already made some efforts to placate investors, with a round of layoffs culling hundreds from the payroll. But shareholders may make their displeasure known via lawsuits about Microsoft’s withdrawal and the loss of several billion in market cap as a result.
