According to the Alley Insider, Yahoo's second largest shareholder, investor firm Legg Mason, has met with Steve Ballmer and supports a bump in the price and thinks that Yahoo should take it. Legg Mason outlined in a letter to shareholders that Microsoft will offer better value than Yahoo can deliver on its own. If you remember Microsoft offered $36 last summer. Expect them to go at least this high, if not higher. (They most likely were prepared to pay this high already.) The Google-Yahoo deal has went cold according to the Wall Street Journal, so Yahoo has very little in the way of options.
Brilliant strategy by Microsoft. Come in at a low point when Yahoo is laying off 1,000 workers with a low bid. Get the shareholders excited, have the board reject the offer and then up the bid. Not the board of directors is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or between a Google and a Microsoft.
When it looks like this deal will go through, I will post why I am such a strong supported of it and counter all the anti-deal.
