My rationale

Rav said:

Jun. 02, 5:02 PM

@Oli Burgess - If you heard bill gates at the allthingd, he sounded like a very risk-averse guy. If you look at MSFT history they do well only in the risk-free returns kind of situations (like monopoly situations, where the risk of failure is extremely low). They have never made a huge acquisition bet (relative to their market cap) unlike say oracle or cisco, which are acquisition driven companies. If you really believe that deal with MSFT is close, can you propose the stock price that MSFT would offer and the cash/stock split? When you do this, also think about the reaction of MSFT stock to the news and the probability of YHOO accepting that deal. With the current stock prices and the recent public statement from MSFT and YHOO, the deal seems even more unlikely, because MSFT stock won't be able to support anything close to what YHOO is looking for, but who knows....

@Steve Baldwin - I'm surprised at your surprise. If you look at the YHOO chart in the time period 2005 to early 2006, it was always over $30. So anyone who got options during that period won't make anything with the proposed MSFT offer. Most folks at YHOO including the employees must be hoping for a deal in $35-40 to really make anything significant. If the merger doesn't do this for them, they have a better shot staying independent and hoping for better days. Of course the stock holders who bought recently for quick gains, would see this in a different light. I doubt if the longer term holders like Bill Miller would be happy if the deal gets done ~$30, with no significant cash component, because YHOO has been mostly trading in the $30-40 range during the last few years, before it dropped in the $20-30 range.