Reports surfaced Wednesday that Microsoft Corp. bankers contacted Facebook about a deal for the whole company. MSFT put a valuation of $15 billion on the social networking site when it paid $240 million for a 1.6% stake in October. The call, however,
according to ATD, was just to gauge Facebook's interest in a deal -- something Microsoft has been doing for quite some time.
Speaking at a conference in Tokyo, Bill Gates spoke about
the now-withdrawn $47 billion bid to acquire Yahoo! Inc., saying
Microsoft would pursue an independent strategy for now.
Of course, there's still the possibility of Microsoft coming back for Yahoo! if the latter's share price continues to dangle on the low end of its 52-week range ($18.58 to $34.08) over the summer. Yahoo!'s shareholder meeting is scheduled for July 3; its shares closed at $25.64, while MSFT shares (range: $26.87 to $37.50) closed down slightly to $29.21.
Shares of Yahoo! were up slightly in after-hours trading on hopes the company could create a deal with another tech firm, perhaps Google Inc., AOL LLC or others.
As for Facebook, the prevailing view is that it's headed for an IPO, though not anytime soon.-
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