Yeehah!
Reuters reported today that Citigroup has upgraded Yahoo shares from hold to buy, and raised the target price from $31 to $34.
Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said Microsoft remained committed to its offer of $31 per share. The Yahoo board rejected it, but took the precaution of voting themselves golden parachutes.
Mahaney believes Microsoft is ‘capable and willing’ to raise the ante. ‘While we continue to see no other competing bidders, we believe Yahoo is aggressively pursuing strategic alternatives.’
Among them a possible exchange of Time Warner content for Yahoo shares. However, as reported previously, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has also sniffed around the deal.
Citigroup believes the likeliest outcome remains a marriage with Microsoft, but Yahoo will continue to play hard to get. So far, so good: Yahoo shares closed at $27.52 on Monday, up from $19 on 1st February, when Microsoft made its $44.6 billion offer.
