After a spending several days following Carl Icahn’s proxy threat sitting silently with no substantive comment regarding its decision earlier this month to abandon pursuit of Yahoo ownership, Microsoft today issued a statement regarding last week’s developments:
In light of developments since the withdrawal of the Microsoft proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft announced that it is continuing to explore and pursue its alternatives to improve and expand its online services and advertising business. Microsoft is considering and has raised with Yahoo! an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo! Microsoft is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo! at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative depending on future developments and discussions that may take place with Yahoo! or discussions with shareholders of Yahoo! or Microsoft or with other third parties.
There of course can be no assurance that any transaction will result from these discussions.