Yahoo Tells Lawmakers Microsoft Seeks Fire Sale
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WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - A Yahoo Inc executive accused Microsoft Corp of teaming up
with activist investor Carl Icahn to force a "fire sale" price for
Yahoo's search business.
Yahoo General Counsel Michael Callahan, in testimony Tuesday to a
U.S. congressional committee, defended his company's advertising
partnership with Google Inc and said Yahoo would not be sold off
piecemeal on terms that disadvantage Yahoo stockholders.
"Microsoft... has turned to activist shareholder Carl Icahn, in the
apparent hope that this will force a fire sale of Yahoo's core
strategic search business," Callahan said at a hearing before the
Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee.
Icahn is leading a proxy campaign to dump Yahoo's current management and board at the August shareholder meeting.
Google, with more than 60 percent of the Web search market, and
Yahoo, with 16.6 percent, announced a deal on June 12 that would allow
Yahoo to place Google advertisements on its site and collect the
revenue.
The Yahoo-Google partnership was widely seen as an effort by Yahoo
to fend off Microsoft's on-again, off-again efforts to buy all or part
of Yahoo. Microsoft has criticized the partnership as an
anticompetitive threat to advertisers and consumer privacy.
Microsoft's most recent offer to acquire Yahoo's search business was rejected Saturday evening by Yahoo.
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