Microsoft offered Yahoo 40 dlrs a share in 2007: court document
NEW YORK (AFP) — Microsoft offered 40 dollars a share to buy Yahoo in 2007, according to court documents unsealed in a class action lawsuit to protest the failed buyout.
The world's largest software maker privately made "a January 2007 acquisition proposal offering about 40 dollars per share" to Yahoo management, at the time headed by chief executive Terry Semel, according to a document unsealed by a Delaware court on Monday.
The plaintiffs, the Police & Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit and the General Retirement System of the City of Detroit, filed the complaint after Yahoo rejected Microsoft's buyout offer of 31 dollars a share in February.
Microsoft's offer marked a "high" 62 percent premium over Yahoo's then-current market price and "reflected Microsoft's express desire to complete a negotiated acquisition," said the document, posted on the website of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang rejected the 31-dollar-per-share offer in February, angering some shareholders.
Microsoft says it broke off takeover talks in late April after it upped its February 1 bid of 44.6 billion dollars by three billion dollars and Yahoo's board still wanted more.
Yahoo shares were trading around 26 dollars Tuesday.
"Due to their personal interests in maintaining Yahoo's independence and their strong antipathy to Microsoft, (Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo) failed to consider and respond in good faith to the acquisition offers by Microsoft to the detriment of Yahoo and its shareholders," the document said.
