Yahoo turned down $44.6bn buyout from Microsoft before selling for just $4.83bn 8 years later
Published on Aug 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Aug 22, 2025 at 2:50 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
Web portal Yahoo turned down a staggering $44.6 billion buyout from Microsoft only to end up selling for $4.83 billion just eight years later.
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo.
It first began as a web directory before branching out into web services, like email and Yahoo News.
And in 2008, it made a very costly mistake after declining an offer from Microsoft.
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Yahoo turned down a huge offer saying it ‘undervalued’ the company
Following its mid-1990s launch, Yahoo grew at an incredible rate, seeing its stock price rise 600 percent between 1996 and 1998.
At the time, the company faced little competition, and in January of 2000, its share price hit an all-time high of $118.75 per share.
In 2008, it attracted the attention of Microsoft who offered $44.6 billion to buy the company.
However, Yahoo shot down the bid, claiming that it ‘substantially undervalued’ the company and that the sale was not in the interest of shareholders.
In response, Microsoft increased its offer to a round $47 billion, but Yahoo held strong.
According to reports, the company wanted Microsoft to boost its bid by 10 percent, something the tech giant refused.
Ultimately meaning Yahoo turned down the offer.
Fast-forward a somewhat bumpy eight years to 2016, and Yahoo wasn’t in such a solid position.
In July of that year, Verizon Communications announced it had bought Yahoo’s core internet business for $8.43 billion, a not-insignificant sum but a whole lot less than Microsoft offered just eight years earlier.
And it was about to get lower.
Due to some well-publicized data breaches at the company, Verizon Communications lowered its offer by $350 million.
The acquisition was completed a little under a year after Verizon Communications first made its bid.
Today, Yahoo still operates under its original name, but is working under an umbrella company called Verizon Media, alongside AOL and HuffPost.
It’s not the only time Yahoo has missed out on making a lot of money
Failing to sell to Microsoft at the right time isn’t the only time Yahoo missed its chance to make a pile of cash.
Back in 2001, when Yahoo was helmed by Terry Semel, its founders suggested the CEO look at buying a newly-launched company called Google.
So Semel took Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin out to dinner and asked if the company was for sale.
The pair told Semel they weren’t looking to sell the company, but they would want at least $1 billion for it if they were to sell it.
According to Cnet, Semel offered them $1 billion, but was told they now wanted $3 billion, and they still didn’t want to sell.
So, Semel dropped the idea and walked away.
“I couldn’t and didn’t buy this company, and the rest is history,” Semel said.
Had Semel decided to offer up an extra couple of billion, Yahoo’s future may have looked very different.
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Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Claire covers a wide variety of topics, with a special focus on cars, technology, planes, cryptocurrency, and luxury.
