Yahoo! (YHOO) Stock Rallies, Buffett Offers to Back Gilbert's Acquisition Bid
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Yahoo! (YHOO) shares are jumping 1.56% to $37.05 Monday morning as investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) offered to provide financing for billionaire Dan Gilbert's bid to buy the search engine giant, Reuters reports.
The consortium vying for Yahoo!'s Internet assets, which includes founder of Quicken Loans Gilbert, is one of several buyers that moved into the second round of bidding for the company.
"I'm an enormous admirer of Dan and what he has accomplished in Quicken Loans," Buffett told CNBC. "Yahoo! is not the type of thing I'd ever be an equity partner in. I don't know the business and wouldn't know how to evaluate it, but if Dan needed financing, with proper terms and protections, we would be a possible financing help."
Even though there's no certainty the consortium will succeed in the auction, Buffett and Gilbert's interest in Yahoo! is a boost for the struggling company that has been working to turn itself around.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings currently has a "Hold" rating on the stock with a letter grade of C-.
The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, good cash flow from operations and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself.
Recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this article's author.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: YHOO
