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Yahoo!-Microsoft: New deal on the table?
Investor suggests $22 per share

By Michelle Meyers

Published: Friday 10 October 2008

As Yahoo! stock reaches new lows, it appears a private equity fund that owns a small percentage of Yahoo!'s stock has proposed a new deal for selling the company to Microsoft.

Mithras Capital Partners, which reportedly owns more than 1.9 million shares, or 0.14 per cent of Yahoo!, suggested a new deal Thursday to sell the company to Microsoft for $22 per share, a 74 per cent premium on Yahoo!'s current stock price, Reuters reported.

Under the deal, the software giant "would unload Yahoo!'s Asian assets and non-search businesses, extract $3bn worth of cost savings, and receive $2.8bn of tax benefits", Reuters said. In other words, the software giant would pay $10.3bn for Yahoo!'s search business.

In May, Microsoft walked away from its buyout offer of $47.5bn to snap up all of Yahoo!, only later to return with a partial buyout offer of $9bn to acquire just the company's search assets.

Yahoo! on Thursday dipped for the first time into the $12-per-share range, ending the day at $12.65. That followed Wednesday's crossing into the $13-per-share range. Analysts have noted that these crossings into new dollar ranges are psychological landmarks for investors.