Your Web Site
A present to long-suffering investors Once upon a time, Microsoft was willing to pay around $45 billion for Yahoo. All sorts of shenanigans have taken place since then, but the main sum remains untouched, and a new rumor has it that a stock buyback may be in the works. Steve Ballmer stated in June that he won't go on an acquisition binge in order to compensate for the botched Yahoo deal. Assuming this is true (Microsoft has picked up MobiComp and DATAllegro since then), the CEO's company is just sitting on a large pile of cash. It's also in touch with a large number of investors who watched its stock sink during the negotiations. Apply some of the one thing to the other, and according to UBS analyst Heather Bellini, Microsoft "is about to make it up to shareholders with a buyback of as much as $20 billion." Dina Bass notes... [read full story]
