• Financial Times, Friday, February 1, 2008 11:45 AM

Microsoft today made an unsolicited cash proposal to buy search engine group Yahoo for $44.6 billion. The proposed offer price--with a cash and shares alternative--is below Yahoo's 52-week high of $34.08 reached last October. Yahoo did not respond immediately.
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Microsoft is striking as Wall Street has grown increasingly disillusioned with Yahoo. It signaled that a combination of the two companies would provide stronger competition for Google, the leading Internet search engine. It says the proposed combination could generate synergies and would benefit from economies of scale in the online advertising market.

Henry Blodget, the former technology analyst, says on his blog: "This is a brilliant move by Microsoft--a big premium dangled in front of battered Yahoo shareholders, but a price that would have seemed absurdly low as recently as six months ago." He expects that the offer will be accepted.

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