“As Microsoft continues to press its takeover bid for Yahoo, Microsoft’s shareholders might be interested to know more about the deal-making history of Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven Ballmer. According to an academic paper that looked at ‘serial acquirer’ chiefs, Mr. Ballmer’s early track record for creating value through acquisitions was pretty dismal,” Andrew Ross Sorkin blogs or The New York Times.
Sorkin reports, “But the working paper, whose lead author, Richard Roll, is a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, also gave a reason to be hopeful: It found evidence that chiefs who make value-destroying acquisitions early on can learn from their mistakes, improving the returns for shareholders in subsequent deals.”
MacDailyNews Take: Richard Roll? Yeah, right, Sorkin. We’re not falling for it this time! Everyone, it’s very important that you watch this short video now.
Sorkin continues, “Called “Learning, Hubris, and Corporate Serial Acquisitions,” the February 2007 paper examined 2,589 chief executives during the period between 1992 and 2002. Out of those, 1,424 chiefs oversaw at least one acquisition.”
“Mr. Ballmer was considered a “hubris-infected” chief under the study’s definition, because of Microsoft’s value-destroying deal to invest $100 million in Vertical Net in 2000. He followed up with deals for Intertainer and BroadBand Office, which also generated below-market returns for shareholders,” Sorkin reports. “In all, Mr. Ballmer made 15 deals between 2000 and 2002, with an average market-adjusted shareholder return of negative 4.59 percent.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Ballmer is an excellent CEO, heh, who is making the right decision to go after Yahoo, heh heh, as such an acquisition can only provide wondrous, hee hee! ha ha!, and magical, *snort!*, HA! HA! HA! HA!, ahem, synergies to… aww, forget it. We tried.
OMG look at that image. Perfect! LOL
That pic cracks me up :XD
Say everything about Ballmer and Microshaft – ‘money grabbing and leaching bastards’.
Say bye bye to Yahoo if M$ get there greedy hands on it.
Be careful whom you denigrate implicitly or otherwise. Richard Roll, PhD, University of Chicago, has a distinguished record in financial economics.
@Jubei
It is perfect. All he needs is a Dr. Evil outfit. Only if I was good at photo editing!
Some mental illness at Microsoft. You have Gates saying that Windows 7 will be out next year or so (or so meaning 3 years+), and you have Ballmer thinking Yahoo is the golden goose.
They seriously need to focus on their primary thing. Software. Get Windows working right. Vista is terrible. Fix it. Now. That should be job ONE at Microsoft. All their funds and focus should be on that, not acquiring Yahoo.
Congratulations, Mike!
You win the “Retard of the Day” award for Tuesday, April 8, 2008!
You can pick up your drool cup any day between 9am and 5pm at your local Safeway.
Crap, I’ve been rickrolled yet again.
Thanks, MDN.
I haven’t looked that deeply into this, but acquisitions and investments are often made to prevent competition for occurring. So these may have been “good” investments for Microsoft after all.
Remember, Microsoft has been successful largely by making other people unsuccessful. It’s hard to believe that wouldn’t play into their acquisition strategy as well.
This merger makes absolutely no sense. Yahoo isn’t doing that that great. If Microsoft can’t make their own online service work – MSN or whatever it is – how in the heck is acquiring Yahoo (that isn’t doing so great) going to add up to improvement. It isn’t.
I applaud Yahoo for holding out for more money – I hope they get lots of it. Make MS pay through the nose. Then – Get out and watch MS burn down from a distance. Ha ha ha.
Do you think that when Ballmer looks in the mirror in the morning he tries to make a light bulb glow by putting in his mouth?
“hubris-infected serial acquirer”
If by hubris-infected you mean as full of wind as a corn-eating horse and by serial acquirer you mean he routinely unhinges his jaw while tipping over the breakroom refrigerator.
@snappytow
The primary champion of self-powered lighting:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/10339/
I wonder if somebody hasn’t documented all the acquisitions, then added up all the lost employees of said acquisitions, then given the final total of what MS has done to the corporate business world.
“Microsoft, we layoff more people than any other company”
That’s a comforting footnote.
@ Always Brings a Smile Though
That will be what MS Shareholders will be saying 10 days after Ballmer close a Yahoo deal, ending up paying a lot more for it then first planned. Ballmer will orders all of Yahoo infrastructure be converted to Windows and all mention of Yahoo be removed from everywhere and everything. All the employees will flee and MS will move everything that’s left of Yahoo to Redmond within 6 months.
In a year tech writers will be what happen to Yahoo? Oh, they when belly up and MS bought them for a bargain price. For getting that MS paid big bucks then sucked Yahoo dry without MS showing any real value for the premium price that they pay.
MS Stock will still be the same price it is today (+/- a few bucks).
“This merger makes absolutely no sense.”
Like that matters! When you grunt, point and have a few billion in the bank, you get people’s attention. Folks are too afraid to go out after dark in Redmond.
MDN are you sure that picture of Ballmer wasn’t photoshopped? How could someone look THAT bad?
Baller’s in trouble, It’s been found that many Monkey’s are now using tools. Soon, they’ll start using leaves for money. Once that happen they will be 1000% more intelligent then Ballmer.
@Mike
Is that a threat?
Rick Roll – lol
That’s actually Rick Astley, one of the numerous UK ‘soul’ singers
waaaay before Joss Stone or Amy Winhouse.
Anyway, Do Microscoff shareholders actually make money? Is investing in an unwise CEO smart? What are they thinking? I understand stocks are really a game, but is it possible to increase stock prices by a Yahoo acquisition, then sell immediately, then when it goes downhill, buy more stock at a cheap price and repeat. Highly unethical to me, but is that how they make their money? Honestly, can someone answer or am I crazy? This is the only logical way I can see anyone profiting.
OOps! I spelled Amy’s name wrong –
Amy Crackhouse
there – all better
The hyena is stalking the herd and has identified the weakest member.
This is not an acquisition – it is the decapitation of a competitor.
Looking at Ballmer’s belly I think the UCLA professor was wrong. Ballmer was indeed a very good cereal acquirer.
Let’s just imagine if only 2 billion dollars instead of 40 billion was put into their next OS and Office…how much more secure their future would be…but not a chance. Apple’s next OS should be called Terminator.
I don’t understand all the negativity about this deal. I for one can’t wait for MSFT to blow out their cash reserves and lower the value of their stock for a piece of shit like yahoo.
I hope the merger drags them both down the toilet.
It is perfect. All he needs is a Dr. Evil outfit.
And the caption: “45….billion….dollars!!”.
I for one can’t wait for MSFT to blow out their cash reserves and lower the value of their stock for a piece of shit like yahoo.
Blowing their cash reserves is easy.
The tough part will be operating with the several billion dollars of “additional financing” (aka DEBT!) they’ll have to take on to complete the deal.
Oh, all this while they go into another Windows death march.
Ballmer is like a failed dictator, giving insane orders from deep within his bunker, while having no idea what’s going on at the surface.
never gonna, c1!
You make the call…
If they decide to make a new Addams Family show of movie I nominate Ballmer to be Uncle Fester.
@Mac lover, I thing I’ll sue you for copyright infringement, your name looks too much like mine… haha
@We Have A New Uncle Fester!
You must be new to the MDN forums. We’ve been calling him Uncle Fester for years. (That is when we aren’t calling him Monkey Boy).
It used to be that if you did a Google Search, Ballmer’s pic was the first photo at the top in the results. Somebody (unfortunately) fixed that. It was a hoot for years.
Ballmer to Yang:
“Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i’ the wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls.—What have we here? a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now,—as once I was,—and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg’d like a man! and his fins like arms! Warm, o’ my troth! I do now let loose my opinion, hold it no longer; this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. [Thunder.] Alas! the storm is come again: my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.”
– William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II. Scene II.
He’s a hubris-infected serial liar!
Psychology testing shows REAL Monkey’s learn avoidance from negative feedback of past experiences.
This Monkey Boy does not.
The ONLY reason why Microsoft is trying to force Yahoo into being bought is to eliminate Yahoo from Microsoft’s competition in the web space and search business.
Anyone remember that they tried the same tactics to buyout Google?? – exactly the same thing going on there, Microsoft wanted to own Google to get rid of one more competitor.
And I firmly believe that is the ONLY reason why Microsoft so desperately wants to buy Yahoo.
They dont want Yahoo as an investment or a partnership, they only want Yahoo so that they cant compete with Microsoft because they know that on a level playing field there is no way that Microsoft can beat Yahoo.
Could be a different person, but in the mid-80s, Goldman Sachs sent out a firm-wide memo detailing the bio of a new hire. I thought the guy’s name was Richard Roll. Because of the unusual name, I looked at the bio, and it stated he was a former aerospace engineer who had worked on designing the Saturn 5 rocket, 2nd stage booster. A real rocket scientist, I joked with a colleague.
It all comes down to Warren Buffet’s influence on Bill Gates… He’s advised Bill that Microsoft should become a holding company, just like Berkshire Hathaway. That’s it, enough said.
You are all only jealous of the powerful baritone Rick commands. I love that tune! Of course, I also have a wonderful baritone voice. You should hear me sing “Summertime” or “Norwegian Wood”.
I woudn’t leave my young son at his home…! This guy looks sick and strange…
There’s a well known phrase in business : “keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer”.
This sums up exactly what Microsoft os doing – trying to keep their competitors very close by buying them out.
Amy Winehouse’ real name is Amy CrackSnack, actually.
Yang to Ballmer:
HAD we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave ‘s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
(Andrew Marvell)
I wish the professor would stop ragging on baby boomers and tell us what is the deal with Ballmer.
Just my $0.02
One has to wonder who did Ballmer sleep with to get his job? Ugh, the horror, the horror.
I pity the poor chairs in Redmond this morning. Someone had better bolt them down quick before Uncle Fester reads this on Yahoo.
Uncle Fester forever, he has been the best thing that any Mac user could ever ask for from MS.
Shouldn’t it read “Herpes-Infected Serial Chair-Thrower”???
The reality is so over-the-top I can’t even respond…
Too much… Shakespeare… Too early… In morning…
@EricDano
Is that Golden Goose or Golden Noose?
“One has to wonder who did Ballmer sleep with to get his job?”
His freshman roommate at Harvard.
Sleep? Not a wink.
[His freshman roommate at Harvard.]
Yeah, Ballmer found his freshmeat.
Ballmer then, kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and…
… and Gates cried “uncle” (hehe), “You can be VP!
Hint Hammer:
It gives opening the floodgates a whole new meaning.
Way back when, we used a great little database program named FoxBase. One day, Microsoft bought it, renamed it FoxPro, and soon thereafter killed it dead. Of course, we continued to use it for many years, but always resented their treatment of this software title.
In a related story, professor Roll has applied for a grant from the International Institute for Observations of the Obvious.
-jcr