M-P

M&A Lessons from 2008: Take the Money and Run

I was not happy with the Yahoo! decision ... I thought Yang breached his fiduciary duty and was too close to his "baby" to not get his imagined price. I have shares in both MSFT and YHOO. The author is right in that management does not want to lose control - the shareholder language often seems specious. Time will tell is these firms made the "right" decisions, but in the near term it doesn't appear that they maximized shareholder value. The cash issue is all about certainty - if you believe in the synergies, you'll pay cash; if you're less certain and you have some bloated stock currency, you'll pay in stock.