In 2008 MS tried to buy Yahoo but failed, because Yahoo thought they were worth a lot more than what was offered. I think it was like a 40% premium and there was already talk about recession, but yet Yahoo held their ground. What was the reason Twitter couldn’t fend off Elon’s buyout bid? Was it because MS didn’t threaten to take the offer directly to Yahoo shareholders, and if yes, then why not? Would love to hear from people who are more or less familiar with the matter
Because it was a great deal for TWTR shareholders
And historically it was bad for Yahoo. They sold themselves for a fraction of the price to Verizon years later.
not exactly true. As Yahoo had investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan also which were not sold to Verizon.
Elon is paying $1 billion in interest every year for Twitter acquisition. He has been made a clown by banks + Twitter board. “For humanity “
Cos Yahoo was run by ass hats who did eventually manage to run it to the ground , twitter was run by smart folks at executive level, who know a good deal when they see one !
Yahoo probably really thought they were worth more. They didn’t realize they were failing. Back then, Google services such as Gmail was Beta and Yahoomail + Messenger + News had pretty good user reach. To keep it short googles rise killed yahoo and yahoo wasn’t expecting it.
This is opposite of Yahoo not selling at a generous price. This is the old Twitter shareholders watching Elon take himself out behind the shed and whupping himself for their benefit. Twitter shareholders got overpaid. Why should they fend off someone handing out free money?
I thought Twitter initially didn’t wanna sell, but when Musk threatened they kinda had to? 🤷♂️
Twitter sued Elon in chancery court to force him to execute the purchase. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk
But they initially rejected the offer $43B offer and then later accepted the $44B one?
It was bad for Yahoo. Their board even fired the CEO Jerry Yang because of this.
Microsoft would have been dead today, had that deal gone through. One of the biggest dodged bullets in the business history, ever.
You don’t know that
Microsoft is a monster. Some teams/products are dead by today but not the company
Twitter boards want to jump the ship for retirement