Yahoo willing to reopen talks, was just kidding around about $37

After the beating the company is taking in the stock market, and with several prominent investors stepping forward to express dissatisfaction with how things were handled, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang says he was willing to discuss things further if Microsoft hadn't turned its back on the offer. "We did not say it was a take-it-or-leave-it number in the sense that we would never negotiate any more," he said, referring to the $37 figure. "We were totally willing to do a transaction, and they walked away." Deep down we know he's just miffed to be missing out on sleeping bag to sleeping bag discussions with Ballmer about adding an exclamation mark to Microsoft. Dream on, Yang.

[Via Silicon Valley Insider]

Update: Microsoft claims "we've moved on."

[(Unverified) Posted May 6th 2008 12:03PM]

INVESTORS INVESTORS INVESTORS????

[(Unverified) Posted May 6th 2008 5:04PM]

My wild guess is that Jerry is buying up all the stocks now at lower price............ so that he can sell it to Microsoft later????

[doobster Posted May 6th 2008 12:10PM]

lol... this is hilarious...! Micro$oft FTW

[(Unverified) Posted May 6th 2008 12:52PM]

I mean wtf was yahoo thinking? Being offered more than the actual worth of the company and they had to sit on it? Yahoo has been a joke for the past 3+ years... burn baby burn!

[psyclotron Posted May 6th 2008 1:31PM]

"We were totally willing to do a transaction, and they walked away."

Wow, since when did Jerry Yang turn into a high school girl from the O.C.?

[sinai Posted May 6th 2008 1:41PM]

jerry yang is the worst negotiator ever.

EVER.

[latinrage69 Posted May 6th 2008 1:47PM]

wow. ballmer and MS is going to screw over yahoo. they were willing to pay $33 a share for stocks worth only $27. yahoo will be lucky enough to get $25 a share from MS after that 20% plunge yahoo took yesterday (making the stocks about $21.60).
i have a feeling we won't be hearing about jerry yang anymore. well, maybe one last story *cough* firing *cough*.

[Norman Speight Posted May 7th 2008 5:43AM]

What kills me about this is the shareholder proposed action to sue the Board because the shareholder gamble of buy-in-the-hope-it-will-rise didn't come off at the level they hoped for.
Seems to me that this makes buying shares in any business moves from being a guess-and-gamble your money, or, back your judgment, into a legal certainty of profit. In other words the lawyers are now in on the act of business support and, guess who will make the most out of it?
In my day you backed your judgment of a business and its management, if you mis-guessed you lost. If your judgment was correct you won.
Decent managers, in a crisis would just change their underpants and charge on. Rubbish managers would cry and run to mommy.
Which one is Jerry? Yet to be revealed I feel.

[(Unverified) Posted May 6th 2008 6:30PM]

Good to see we've reached the "saving face" part of the dance.
MS - We didn't want them anyway
Yahoo - We would have loved to have talked about it...they just didn't want to listen.

Shareholders - you both fucking suck...