Inside Yahoo's Offer that Over Could Not Refuse

Interesting peek behind the curtain

[martinibuster]

Apparently Y had been stalking O for a year. O resisted until their stock started taking a beating, and Y threatened to invoke a poison pill clause that would have made any other offer unworkable.

Acording to the Seattle Times [seattletimes.nwsource.com]:

The shareholder prospectus revealed that Yahoo held a bargaining chip that might have made it difficult for Overture to negotiate with other potential suitors, including Microsoft's MSN.com...

If Overture had been sold to another company, Yahoo could have dropped Overture's links from its popular site and demanded a termination payment of $5 million to $10 million in addition to 2 percent to 3 percent of Overture's stock, according to the prospectus.

[Imaster]

That sounds interesting. Thanks for the link.

[martinibuster]

I guess it's pretty gossipy as far as news items go.