Gates: We’ll pursue independent path

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the company isn’t pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo.

He said in Tokyo that the company put “a lot of effort” in the talks with Yahoo and has decided the two should pursue “independent paths.”

Over the weekend, Microsoft withdrew its 3-month-old unsolicited bid for Yahoo Inc. after seeing the impasse with Yahoo’s board over a mutually acceptable sales price.

“Now at this point Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy,” Gates told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo.

Those comments seemed to set a different tone than on Tuesday in South Korea, where he said the company wasn’t ruling out alternative partnerships after the failure to buy Yahoo.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had orally offered to pay $33 per share, or $47.5 billion, for Yahoo, up from an initial bid valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share. At the time the negotiations collapsed, the value of Microsoft’s original offer had fallen to $42.3 billion, or $29.40 per share, because half the deal was supposed to be financed with Microsoft’s declining stock.

Yahoo’s board wanted $37 per share – a price that the company’s stock hasn’t reached in more than two years.

Microsoft trails Google in the online search and advertising markets, and the bid for Yahoo was an attempt at turning that around.