"Plan B" Is Short for "Be Seeing Ya, Yahoo"
Microsoft (MSFT) has withdrawn its bid for Yahoo (YHOO), spanked its CEO in a stink-bomb of a public letter, disavowed plansfor any future acquisitions, and disbanded the slate of dissident directors it had lined up should it have decided to go forward with a hostile proxy bid for the company.
But if Yahoo, beaten into submission by irate investors, should suddenly come crawling back to the now empty negotiating table, Microsoft might indulge it, if only for a moment. For now, it’s busy with what Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie refers to as “Plan B.”
“The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it’s over,” Mundie told Reuters. “Yahoo could always come back again and say, Please buy us for $33 (a share), and I’m sure we might reconsider it, but we’re not assuming that’s going to happen.”
Seems Microsoft, like Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, is more than willing to listen if the company has anything new to say. And it’s not even facing any shareholder lawsuits …