Rumor Mill - Yahoo Acquiring MySpace for 25% of Stock?
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007;
-- Andy Beal |
Rumors have a habit of never transpiring, but when the NYT, The Times and TechCrunch all suggest that Yahoo may give up 25% of their stock, in exchange for full ownership of MySpace, we should probably sit up and take notice.
It’s somewhat hard to comprehend why Yahoo would give MySpace a value of around $12 billion, yet won’t cough-up a couple billion for the fast growing Facebook - perhaps MySpace’s broader appeal is the key to its valuation. Certainly, Fox Interactive would see a very nice return on investment for the $580 million they paid for MySpace, but why would they be so interested in an all stock deal with a company that only recently fired their CEO? Perhaps CEO Mr. Murdoch can shed some light on why he’d sell MySpace…
Asked whether newspaper readers were drifting off to MySpace, Mr Murdoch joked: ?I wish they were. They?re all going to Facebook at the moment.?
Well then, it seems like a good time to sell. Even if Yahoo’s stock declined by 50% before News Corp. could sell their stake, that’s still a $5+ billion ROI.
So, the next question is, why is Yahoo prepared to give up 25% of their company for a social network. Honestly? I have no idea, and I think that’s Yahoo’s biggest problem - they don’t know what they want to be, so how can anyone else know? Yahoo’s stalling stock, CEO departure, peanut butter memo and low employee moral can all be tied to the fact that Yahoo just doesn’t appear to know which direction to head. They’ve seemingly given up trying to compete with Google, yet haven’t really found an alternative niche to dominate.
As others have noted, the chances are low that this deal will go through, but if it does, you get the sense that this will be Yahoo’s last ditch attempt to find its purpose in life, or find someone willing to buy them out.
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Category: Rumors, Yahoo
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June 20th, 2007 at 11:09 am
The prices being paid for dot.com companies today is truly amazing. Makes me wish that I had a brandable product for sale so that I might cash in. Still, $12 billion for MySpace? Wow.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Holy cow! I hope Yahoo doesn’t make a brash decision and push this one through. Seems like suicide to me.
I think that they should still work on a deal to buy Facebook after all of the recent changes and apps that have been added to make them better than Myspace in my opinion.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
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June 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Andy is that $12 billion right? I thought I saw Yahoo valued at $37 billion which would make 25% $9+ billion.
It’s still a lot of money to pay for MySpace and Facebook would seem to be the better deal. When I first heard the news my thoughts were Rupert Murdock was pulling off one great deal for himself.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
@Steven, that’s the number everyone is using.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
it seem’s joke for me. i don’t think yahoo can get the 25% stock of MySpace
June 20th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I have to agree with the previous poster..facebook sounds like a better persuit.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:33 am
Lets buy it for 30% and sell it for 50% than we make 20% overnight.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:58 am
Ohh!! I Heard Yahoo is also Aquaring bharatstudent.com
Is it True ….