The Microhoo cat-and-mouse game continues.
The three-week deadline that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) imposed on Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) to agree to its buyout terms came and went on Saturday.
Microsoft issued no "you blew it" press release over the weekend. Yahoo!'s silence also means that it wasn't eager to seal the deal under the current terms. Still, this isn't the end of Microhoo. Both companies posted year-over-year dips in adjusted profitability last week. They need each other. They're just too proud to beg, steal, or negotiate.
Fireworks are still likely to happen early this week. I doubt that executives from either company spent the weekend watching the NFL draft. They have enough holes to fill in their own rosters to worry about football.
However, just as the NFL draft began with the selections of Jake Long followed by Chris Long, the Microhoo saga is also getting a bit long. Microsoft can go hostile, by taking its offer directly to the shareholders, but neither it nor Yahoo! wants that. Microsoft has enough problems without complicating a possible merger by stoking Yahoo!'s resentment.
If the purchase isn't amicable, isn't Microsoft simply just buying page views? And if that's what this deal boils down to, can't Mr. Softy get them cheaper just about anywhere else?
The weekend may have been quiet, but keep those earplugs on. I think things are about to get pretty noisy.
News to go
Is Warren Buffett biting off more than he can chew? Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) is teaming up with privately held Mars in a move to acquire chewing-gum giant Wrigley (NYSE: WWY), according to this morning's Wall Street Journal and New York Times. If the sources are accurate, the parties are closing in on what would be a $22 billion deal. Berkshire is no stranger to sweetness -- he owns both See's Candies and Dairy Queen. Imagine -- Buffett a Life Savers lifesaver?
Your tax rebate checks are coming. The economic stimulus checks, which weren't set to go out until next month, will start being mailed out today. Their impact on the economy remains to be seen, though the timing of the disbursements just before schools let out should give the summer travel industry a welcome break.
There's a lot of pressure in crunching E*Trade's (Nasdaq: ETFC) numbers. The company announced that its CFO would leave the discount broker within the next two weeks. As cute as the trading baby is in those amusing E*Trade ads, let's hope he isn't on the short list of CFO candidates.
Make space for Rackspace. The Web hosting company filed to go public over the weekend. Rackspace is profitable and growing its top line quickly. The IPO pipeline started running dry after the market peaked last year, but now that the rubble appears to have settled, some of the higher-quality names like Rackspace are willing to give Wall Street a go. With last week's successful Intrepid Potash debut, the time is right for this company.
Medarex (Nasdaq: MEDX) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) announced a delay in filing for their potentially promising skin-cancer treatment, Ipilimumab. Setbacks are common in the long approval process, but investors don't warm to the implications, nor to the slowdown in either company's drug pipeline.
If the multiplex felt a little quieter than usual, it's because the top two box-office draws were Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Neither film cleared $20 million in ticket sales over the weekend. Exhibitors shouldn't worry, though. Business will pick up substantially when Iron Man -- the latest big-budget flick from Marvel's comic book library, and the first produced by the company itself -- opens later this week.
Have a great day out there.
