Microsoft and Carl Icahn fired back at Yahoo on Monday as the corporate raider continues a quest to overthrow the struggling Internet firm’s board and form an alliance with the software giant.
Microsoft and Icahn separately accused the embattled Internet pioneer of misrepresenting a Friday offer to buy Yahoo’s online search business.
Yahoo vehemently rejected what it derided as a “take it or leave it” proposal from Icahn and Microsoft, saying any notion of accepting it was “ludicrous.”
Yahoo said the offer mandated a dismantling of the company and a massive restructuring in which the firm’s board and top executives would be replaced.
“This discussion has been mischaracterized as a take it or leave it ultimatum, rather than a timetable in order to move forward to intensive negotiations,” Microsoft said in a release.
Icahn fired off a more heated response in a letter to Yahoo shareholders, saying he has never before seen a company “distort, omit and twist events and facts in the manner that Yahoo has done.”
Microsoft said that the offer stemmed from a telephone conversation with Yahoo board chairman Roy Bostock and that the deal would have guaranteed Yahoo advertising revenues generated by online search advertising.
Terms were negotiable and more time to work out a deal could have been arranged, Icahn and Microsoft said.
“It looks like Yahoo went to Microsoft and asked them to jump through hoops and then rejected the offer out of hand,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.
“I think [Microsoft chief executive Steve] Ballmer is pretty peeved about the way it worked out and they feel like they were played,” Enderle said.
If it is a tactic by Yahoo to portray Icahn as conspiring with Microsoft to Yahoo’s detriment, it could backfire, he said.
Bostock said the offer was crafted without input from Yahoo and weighted mightily in Microsoft’s favor.
“This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo’s stockholders in mind,” Bostock said in a Saturday statement spurning the latest offer.
The deal called for Yahoo’s board to be immediately replaced by an Icahn-led slate and the removal of top Yahoo executives, with co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang presumably heading the list.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique