This reminds me of Excite@Home buying Blue Mountain Arts and Webshots because they got a lot of hits. How incredibly not useful!
The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
91–100 of 191 posts
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…
Google is a genius at acquisitions IMO. To qualify as a genius you don't need a 100% of acquisitions to work out. You do need a few to work out tremendously. Google has those. Meanwhile, what's the last yahoo acquisition that didn't turn into disappointment soon after the acquisition? We can go back 15 years and be hard-pressed to find one. On the other hand there are plenty of disaster acquisitions including broadca…
>Meanwhile, what's the last yahoo acquisition that didn't turn into disappointment soon after the acquisition?
One could argue that that the last acquisition that worked out was the acquisition of Stamped. Something tells me they were behind the new Yahoo! Weather iPhone app which is stellar.
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#93nice deal
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#94nice deal
rely myself
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…
Google is a genius at acquisitions IMO. To qualify as a genius you don't need a 100% of acquisitions to work out. You do need a few to work out tremendously. Google has those. Meanwhile, what's the last yahoo acquisition that didn't turn into disappointment soon after the acquisition? We can go back 15 years and be hard-pressed to find one. On the other hand there are plenty of disaster acquisitions including broadca…
I don't mean to imply that Yahoo is more successful than Google at acquisitions (We know that isn't the case). I just don't think Google is a good benchmark for acquisitions. I think they as good or as bad as Yahoo.
I think Yahoo's problem with acquisitions has been that they are moderately successful initially and then drift away over time. ViaWeb, GeoCities, Musicmatch Jukebox, Konfabulator, delicious and Ludicorp (of Flickr fame) come to mind. Other than Flickr, none of the others are still around, but they weren't disappointments soon after acquisition either.
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#96This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…
I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…
To know that Motorola was a poor acquisition, you'd need to know what would have happened if Google hadn't done it. Defensive/preventative decisions are sometimes undervalued.
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This doesn't make sense. Which CEO doesn't believe that their stock won't go up in 3 years? If they don't believe it, they should be fired." This is clearly untrue. Which moron CEO at the head of a newspaper anticipates anything more than a very modest increase in their stock over the next few years? Most newspapers are very much aware of their problems. Do you think a CEOs job is to bury their head in the sand and…
A CEO's job is to increase shareholder value. End of story. This means increasing the stock price. So yes, I do believe that this statement is absolutely true. The CEO needs to figure out a way to increase shareholder value, whether they are Yahoo, or Washington Post, or New York Times, or Groupon. They are not supposed to sit around and maintain dividends. Whether it's breaking into new businesses, selling their cur…
A CEO's job is to do whatever it is that shareholders hired her/him to do.
A CEO that can preserve value and maintain dividends is a good one. Who wouldn't want to invest in a stable and profitable company?
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can someone explain to me why you spend $1.1B on this if the company was running out of cash, had investors skittish about funding a new round and there were no competing bids. Why didn't Yahoo just let them get desperate and buy them then? With an all-cash deal, it seems they're less interested in the team than the platform so seems they could have picked that up in a few months for significantly less. What am I mis…
If you and Marissa Mayer want the last burger in the world, how much is it worth? What if you're Mark Zuckerberg, and it's really important to her that you don't get a taste of that burger? Maybe she doesn't even like burgers. Factors like the cost of the burger, or how fresh/tasty it is, become less important. Also, all-cash doesn't mean what you think it means. The currency used to pay for a company (cash, stock, p…
The point about vesting is one I hadn't considered. Thanks.
Re: the burger analogy, that also makes sense in the context of there being competition for this deal. But aside from a puff piece in TC which looks placed by sources (aka Tumblr banker Frank Quattrone), there didn't look like much competition in this case.
But nevertheless, thanks for the informative answer.
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is just getting started with Motorola so it's too soon to tell and I'm pretty sure that Blogger has been a huge success (through adsense) and many successful blogs uses it. It went down though since Facebook and Twitter for obvious reasons but the same thing happened to most blogging platforms.
I'm sorry, but in the 12 months since the acquisition was announced, MOT has lost pretty much every court case it's been in, had patents invalidated, has been passed over by google for 4 (might be even more?) flagship 'nexus' products, and hasn't built/shipped/teased a single thing newsworthy. You can't seriously be arguing that this has gone well?
> MOT has lost pretty much every court case it's been in
I think for Google to be assuming an aggressive position in the courts is just posturing. Can you imagine the reaction if Google did really go all at it, and there was a result of an injunction against sale of all iPhones? No, of course Google/MOT would not go for something like that, that makes no sense. As it stands though, MOT's patent portfolio is pretty damn good. They're in a good position for it. It was something they needed and now they have it.
Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr
#100Thoughts on why this was an all-cash deal as opposed to similar comps (Instagram, YouTube) which were cash/stock mix?
From the acquirer side:
Maybe they wanted to put some excess cash to work.
Cash is important when you don't have it. But once you have it, it's a dead asset that produces no meaningful return. Excess cash is important as an option on future opportunity. Apparently, Yahoo found their opportunity.
Or, maybe they didn't want to revise EPS estimates down.
An extra $1B worth of $YHOO out in the marketplace would dilutes EPS by about 3% until the revenue starts flowing.
From the acquiree side:
Opportunity vs sure thing + choice of opportunities.
$1.1B in $YAHOO today will be worth something else tomorrow. Maybe more. Maybe less. Maybe $0. Cash is guaranteed to go down in value at the rate of inflation. But not more. And they get to decide on some other opportunity(ies) to go after.