SEATTLE — Internet icon Yahoo, under pressure of a three- week deadline from Microsoft to accept its $41 billion buyout bid, said Monday it doesn’t oppose a deal with the world’s largest software maker but wants a better offer.
The statement comes after Microsoft warned Saturday that if a deal isn’t reached by April 26, it will launch a hostile takeover at a less attractive price.
In Yahoo’s lengthiest statement about the bid to date, chief executive Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock wrote in a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that the current offer is “not in the best interests of shareholders” of Yahoo.
“We are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders,” Yang and Bostock said in the letter. “Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders.”
Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo, made public Feb. 1, would create a stronger rival to Google, which dominates the online- search advertising market.
The cash-and-stock bid at the time was valued at $44.6 billion, or 62 percent above Yahoo’s market value. As of Friday, the deal was worth just less than $41 billion.
Yahoo’s board formally rejected Microsoft’s bid Feb. 11, saying it undervalued the firm.
In Monday’s letter, Yang and Bostock said Microsoft’s threat to go hostile is “counterproductive and inconsistent with your stated objective of a friendly transaction.”
The Yahoo leaders also dinged Microsoft for implying that the two companies hadn’t discussed the deal since February. Yang and Bostock said the two companies “have had constructive conversations together regarding a variety of topics, including integration and regulatory issues.”
Joele Frank of the public-relations firm Microsoft has hired to advise on the Yahoo deal said early Monday that Microsoft had no immediate response to the Yahoo statement beyond the “explicit” letter Ballmer sent to Yahoo’s board Saturday.
“If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal,” Ballmer wrote.
Since initially rejecting Microsoft’s bid, Yahoo has explored alliances with Google, News Corp.’s and Time Warner’s AOL, but no alternative to Microsoft’s offer has surfaced.
