As expected, speculation is already rife that Yahoo! will be taken over following the news the web firm's CEO Jerry Yang will step down.
As previously reported, Yang has been resistant to growing support amongst some of the firm's shareholders for a sell out, and some of those shareholders were angry when they thought Yang scuppered a takeover offer from Microsoft earlier this year. Yahoo! confirmed Yang would step down earlier this week, the decision coming soon after news that an advertising partnership between Yahoo! and rivals Google, something Yang had hoped would help turn round the company's fortunes, collapsed when Google got cold feet because of regulator concerns the deal may be anti-competitive.
Gossipers are now gossiping that Microsoft might now make a new bid for Yahoo! once Yang is out of the way (though he'll still be on the web firm's board so presumably will still have some influence). Microsoft are refusing to comment on the speculation, but investment types say Yahoo!'s low share price and relatively weak position at the moment make this the ideal time for the IT giant to have another stab at acquiring web firm as part of its strategy to expand its content and advertising assets.
The Guardian quote UBS Investment Research analyst Ben Schachter thus: "We still believe Microsoft will eventually own Yahoo - Jerry moving out of the CEO role may accelerate this. Yahoo is a key strategic asset in the online space, and given the scarcity of key players of size, we see value here not reflected in the stock's current valuation".