November 12th, 2008
Arrington: 'Yahoo Almost To $10. Referee, Please Call This Fight'
As Yahoo stock dropped almost 9 percent to just $10.34, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington points to a horrific big-picture view of the company’s staggering plummet to the bottom:
“That means they’ve officially destroyed $31 billion in shareholder value since turning down Microsoft’s acquisition offer earlier this year. We now remember the good ‘ol days back in June when the stock price was in the twenties. If you go by Facebook’s official valuation of $15 billion, it’s now worth more than Yahoo’s $14.33 billion.”
MicroHoo? No wonder. MicroBook is what we should really be talking about.
In all seriousness, though, analysts are saying Yahoo must rid of their search business fast because the costs of competing with Google mean their display ad business is languishing. As military history buffs would note, that’s a two-front war Yahoo is in, and they’ve only got enough resources to survive with one.
Can Yahoo take any more hits? Well, there’s solace in the fact that it can’t go below zero. But as my colleague Larry Dignan noted, the companies’ “never-ending deal dance is wearing thin among the chattering class — bloggers, analysts and folks sick of following this dysfunctional courtship — and the consensus is right. The time to do a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is now and it’s time to put aside the bad boardroom blood and hook up on search.”
And while they’re at it, they may want to reevaluate Yang, too.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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