Icahn asks Yahoo to sell to Microsoft for $49.5 billion

07 June 2008

Mumbai: Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has extended his fight against Yahoo Inc's board, asking it offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375 a share.

In a letter to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, ahead of an approaching annual shareholder meeting of the company, Icahn said he wants Yahoo to tell Microsoft it's willing to be sold for $49.5 billion, about $2 billion above Microsoft's last offer.

"Why don't you stop dancing around the subject and publicly offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375 per share and promise to cooperate completely?" Icahn said in the letter.

Yahoo, however, rejected the idea of declaring an acceptable sales price for the company while Microsoft declined comment.

In his latest letter to Yahoo, Icahn said if Microsoft doesn't accept the offer "in a friendly and cooperative transaction," he would push the internet company to do a deal with Google Inc if he wins control of Yahoo's board.

"So why don't you stop dancing around the subject and publicly offer to sell the company to Microsoft for $34.375 per share and promise to cooperate completely?," Icahn wrote to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock.
 
Microsoft, which made a $33-per-share offer for Yahoo Inc, abandoned the plans after Yahoo demanded $37 a share.