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Microsoft will miss out on the best of Yahoo!

by Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 05 February 2008
! Yahoo-Japan has a market capitalisation close that of Yahoo! inc, makes similar but growing profits and will remain a publicly traded company on the Tokyo stock exchange, only 33 percent owned by Microsoft if the proposed acquisition goes through. Related stories Chrome is good news for the ABM crowd Microsoft slips free development tools to students VMware ESX qualifies under Microsoft virtualisation support program Guitar Hero World Tour dated and priced Xbox 360 now cheaper, will Nintendo cut the Wii price? Eurotechnology Japan KK - despite its name a long established Japanese advisory and consulting firm - points out that "Yahoo-Japan is far more successful than Yahoo! Inc [and] assuming the same 62 percent premium [on the current share price] Microsoft would be offering an additional $US28 billion for the remaining 67 percent of Yahoo-Japan." Yahoo! inc holds 33 percent of Yahoo-Japan, Softbank 41 percent and the rest is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company's current market cap is $US23.46b, compared to Yahoo!'s $US25.66b. However, Eurotechnology notes that 'Yahoo-Japan is in much better shape than Yahoo! inc: Yahoo-Japan's profit margin is close to 100 percent, while global Yahoo! inc's profit margin is about 18 percent." Its operating revenue, however, is only about 25 percent that of Yahoo! inc. Eurotechnology observes that "Given that Yahoo-Japan is far more successful than Yahoo!-inc, and that its directly linked to one of the world's most advanced mobile operators, Yahoo-Japan might be the most strategically interesting part of Yahoo for Microsoft to acquire - however Yahoo-Japan is not part of the potential deal, it seems." Softbank acquired Vodafone's Japan operations for $US15 billion and turned them around within six months to become becoming Japan's third largest integrated fixed and mobile operator. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment! Tags See All Tags Japan Mergers Acquisitions Microsoft Stuart Corner Yahoo! Get stories like this delivered daily - FREE - subscribe now