February 15 2008
Yahoo to be saved by Murdoch?
The “will they won’t they?” Yahoo saga just gets better and better as Murdoch threatens to enter the ring
First we had Microsoft making a bid for Yahoo, then we had AOL talking to Yahoo and now it seems that News International has decided to be Yahoo’s white knight. News International owners of very very big newspapers everywhere, Sky, MySpace and plaything of oz tycoon Rupert Murdoch are talking to Yahoo about a joint effort. According to a BBC report on the 5th of Feb Rupert Murdoch said "We are definitely not going to make a bid for Yahoo," However, Mr Murdoch then added: "We are just not interested at this stage."
However he was sufficiently “not interested” enough to then have dinner with Yahoo’s Chief Executive, Jerry Yang. Perhaps he was giving Yang a few tips on how not be bought, and god knows he knows enough about buying companies that he should be able to give advice.
Then just yesterday one of Murdoch’s toys the Wall Street journal reported that Yahoo and News International we’re back talking about swapping assets. With News International taking a 20% stake in Yahoo, and Yahoo taking MySpace – in other words News International would inject a big load of much needed cash into Yahoo as long as they took the irritating kids at MySpace and all of the other internet duds that News International don’t understand off their hands.
We’ve also seen rumours that Apple might be looking to buy Yahoo. Frankly we’re disappointed that nobody has asked us at IR if we want to buy Yahoo. If all our readership clubbed together then I’m sure we could put in a good bid, or at least a down payment on a good bid. We await with baited breath the next exciting instalment of the whole affair.
