Agencies

New York/Silicon Valley, May 6: Software giant Microsoft has abandoned its threemonth old bid to buy Yahoo after the two failed to agree on acceptable price. Microsoft had offered $47.5 billion, which translated into $33 per share but Yahoo wanted $57 billion ($37 a share). Initially, the software giant in February had offered $44.6 billion or $31 a share but raised the offer as the negotiations proceeded. 

Microsoft announced its decision to withdraw after talks between its chief executive Steven A Ballmer and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in Seattle failed to produce an agreement on Saturday. Microsoft had made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo so as to compete with Google search engine. 

Ballmer, in a letter to Yang, pointed out that Microsoft had already raised its bid by about $5 billion and despite its best efforts, Yahoo has not “moved towards accepting our offer”. 

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” Ballmer said. 

Meanwhile, Yahoo dismissed Microsoft’s unsolicited bid as a “distraction”. 

“With the distraction of Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximise our potential to the benefit of our shareholders, employees, partners and users,” Yang said in a statement