• Bloomberg News, Monday, July 14, 2008 12 PM

Yahoo over the weekend rebuffed another Microsoft advance, this time with Carl Icahn sitting shotgun. The proposal would have split up the Internet company by granting Microsoft control of Yahoo's search business and leaving Icahn and his new board with control over the rest of it. Yahoo quickly accused Microsoft and the billionaire investor of coercing the company to sell assets to support an "odd and opportunistic alliance" that doesn't have the best interest of its shareholders in mind. The latest attempt by Icahn and Microsoft was most likely the last in the lead-up to Yahoo's shareholder meeting on Aug. 1.

"Carl Icahn and Microsoft presented us with a 'take it or leave it' proposal,'' Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement over the weekend. ''It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a proposal. We will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders." According to the Bloomberg report, Yahoo's directors wanted to sell the entire company for $33 per share, the last price that Microsoft offered in early May.

Analysts had mixed responses to the news. Andrew Frank, an analyst at industry researcher Gartner Inc., said Yahoo "has shown no flexibility in separating the search engine from the rest of the company,'' and that "Microsoft is sincere in that it wants to make a deal and Yahoo sincerely thinks it is undervalued."

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