Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion

MICROSOFT OFFERS TO BUY YAHOO FOR $44.6 BILLION
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Franklin Paul and Tiffany Wu]
Microsoft Corp said on Friday it has offered to buy Yahoo Inc, the popular Web portal, for $44.6 billion in cash and stock, seeking to join forces against Google Inc in what would be the biggest Internet deal since the Time Warner-AOL merger. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's closing stock price on Nasdaq Thursday. Yahoo shares jumped to $30.75 in premarket trading. Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services, said a deal made sense. "Yahoo is having a really tough time competing against Google. Whether it's a good price, I can't see anybody else who is going to outbid Microsoft," Mendelsohn said. Microsoft said it had identified four areas that would generate at least $1 billion in annual synergies for the combined entity.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSWNAS894220080201