Archive: February 2008

Most people approaching middle age from well-to-do families or with professional careers are looking forward to a time when they can make themselves independently wealthy: having enough money, in your control, to create passive income sufficient to meet your needs....

The linked article from the New York Times purports to reveal how hedge fund managers are profiting from inside information (the term of art is “material nonpublic information”). In this case, the secrets refer to pending PIPES (private investment in...

The linked article from the NY Times argues that Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo signals Microsoft’s failure in growing a profitable, competitive online business organically. This might be true to the extent that Google is unmistakably the biggest dog in...

A number of stories since the Microsoft bid have discussed what Yahoo might do to avoid Microsoft’s offer. Too few stories have explored what Yahoo actually has to do: the board’s fiduciary duties require it to maximize shareholder value. Anything...

The big news on Friday was Microsoft’s bear hug letter to Yahoo’s board. The news was announced before market open on Friday, and the >60% premium in Microsoft’s offer was quickly arbitraged away, leaving a much smaller spread (<10%) Wired...