LAWSUIT: Detroit Pension Funds Sue Yahoo!

[SRTDodge05]

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Two Detroit pension funds have sued Yahoo Inc. and its board of directors, saying they breached their duties to shareholders in trying to thwart a takeover by Microsoft Corp.
The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday by lawyers representing Detroit's police and fire retirement system and general retirement system, as well as "all other similarly situated public shareholders."
According to the lawsuit, Yahoo's board is pursuing "value-destructive" third-party deals in an effort to fight off Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, which on Feb. 1 announced a takeover bid of $31 per share in cash and stock, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's previous day's closing price.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, whose shares closed unchanged at $28.42 on Friday, rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid as inadequate, but indicated that it might be willing to negotiate if the price was right. Yahoo is believed to want at least $40 per share, or about $56 billion.
After rebuffing Microsoft, Yahoo reportedly began discussing a possible Internet partnership with media conglomerate News Corp., which owns the popular MySpace Web site, and exploring an advertising partnership with Google, its biggest rival.

LAWSUIT: Detroit Pension Funds Sue Yahoo! || WXYZ.com | WXYZ-TV / Detroit | Detroit News, Weather, Sports and More

[Deer Slayer]

Ok, this is just TYPICAL AMERICAN ABUSE OF THE COURTS!!! OMG, this should be CHUCKED to the curb, FAST! Filing a lawsuit for preserving the life of a company because it's not as "profitable" for shareholders is just BS! Our legal lystem SUX! M$ will just put all the Yahoo employees out of work, and use the name. Figures it would come from Detroit, greediest people on earth. They're plundering that city for EVERYTHING they can get in EVERY way possible!!!

[3 of 7]

It's like nobody cares about the future anymore.... It's all me,me,me..
The stock market has to disappear... The sooner the better.

[ctal]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

It's like nobody cares about the future anymore.... It's all me,me,me..
The stock market has to disappear... The sooner the better.

The stock market serves very fundamental economic purposes, such as allowing companies to raise capital needed to grow, via investment by the general public and by institutions. In so doing, profit-driven market forces that operate within the stock market system tend, in the long run, to channel investment capital to where it can be applied most productively.

While I agree that the stock market system fosters a greed mentality, which often seems excessive, I doubt that there is a practicable alternative that could be implemented without extremely radical change to our economic system.

Regards,
-- Al

[3 of 7]

A good practical alternative just might be companies that actually create profits and use those profits to grow.

While the stock market may have started out as a good idea, it's become a vehicle for investors to borrow huge amounts of cash to do unscrupulous things with..As long as there is a quick buck in it for the shareholders that's A-OK with them.

If we applied the same mentality to mortgages, as soon as you had any equity in your house, the bank would take it.

[TQ]

I agree with Al on this. Yes, the stock market can foster greed but it also serves the additional purpose of allowing me to invest money I earn and make it grow into additional profit, as well as the points he made about how being public allows companies to raise capital.
How else would one create wealth? Work multiple jobs? I'd rather invest and have my money work for me than do the work myself. This way I can concentrate on what I do best and have income from several sources.

Now if I could only opt out of social security and let me take that money and invest it...

[TQ]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

The stock market has to disappear... The sooner the better.

I think it's time to make the legal system we have disappear, rather than the stock market.
I don't even understand the nature of this suit. Now companies can't refuse a takeover bid because some ambulance chasers decide it's not in the best interest of the shareholders?
Bizarre.

[ctal]

Originally Posted by TQ

I think it's time to make the legal system we have disappear, rather than the stock market.

As a non-practicing member of that esteemed profession , I can present the following question and answer:

Q: What do you call 10,000 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?

A: A good start.

-- Al

[TQ]

A lawyer was working late on a brief one night when suddenly – in an eruption of sulfur and ash – Satan appears before him.
Satan says to the lawyer, “I’ll make you a deal. For the rest of your career when you go to court you’ll win big. When you settle out of court it will always be in your favor. Now all I want in return is your soul and the souls of your wife and children.”
The lawyer leans back in his chair and eyes the devil closely, then asks:
“What’s the catch?”

[ctal]

-- Al

[3 of 7]

Originally Posted by TQ

I think it's time to make the legal system we have disappear, rather than the stock market.
I don't even understand the nature of this suit. Now companies can't refuse a takeover bid because some ambulance chasers decide it's not in the best interest of the shareholders?
Bizarre.

You want to see bizarre, you should have been here the last ten years. Because of the exchange on the dollar due to trader manipulation, a very large percentage of our companies got carved up so some "investor" could make a few pennies on his/her stocks.. It's pathetic, especially when the companies doing the buying could never in a million years even begin to service the debt incurred in the buy-out without selling off all the assets of the "acquisition"

It's not creating wealth at all, it's killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

[TQ]

Sounds similar to what's been happening in radio here in the U.S. My former employer (and other large radio groups) paid outrageous prices for independent/small regional group radio stations back in the mid-to-late 1990's. Then the radio industry begins to hemorrhage listeners (due primarily to said industry's inability to deliver compelling content) and suddenly they can't service the debt.
Solution? Sell to an investment group, jettison dozens of less profitable stations, lay off (or drive off) the employees that actually make the stations work and take the company private.
Riiiight...like that will solve the basic problem of the fact that your content bores people by the droves.

The good thing is that the some of the stations will return to the control of smaller, independent groups/owners who might actually have an original idea or two.

[maraud]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

It's like nobody cares about the future anymore.... It's all me,me,me..
The stock market has to disappear... The sooner the better.

Don't blame the stock market for the greed of the pension funds and their lawyers. Thats another form of shooting the messenger because you don't like the message delivered.

[maraud]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

A good practical alternative just might be companies that actually create profits and use those profits to grow.

While the stock market may have started out as a good idea, it's become a vehicle for investors to borrow huge amounts of cash to do unscrupulous things with..As long as there is a quick buck in it for the shareholders that's A-OK with them.

If we applied the same mentality to mortgages, as soon as you had any equity in your house, the bank would take it.

There are banks that have done this in the past and things that are even more sinister.

[maraud]

Originally Posted by 3 of 7

You want to see bizarre, you should have been here the last ten years. Because of the exchange on the dollar due to trader manipulation, a very large percentage of our companies got carved up so some "investor" could make a few pennies on his/her stocks.. It's pathetic, especially when the companies doing the buying could never in a million years even begin to service the debt incurred in the buy-out without selling off all the assets of the "acquisition"

It's not creating wealth at all, it's killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

I am sorry for your misfortune but destroying the stock market is not the answer.