

Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell thinks he knows why Microsoft shares have gotten hammered so hard in recent months. And that reason is Yahoo. In an internal interview today, Liddell was asked to comment on the stock's lagging performance. Liddell boils it down to three major factors:

"[It's] our own performance, but more particularly general economic performance . . . and the Yahoo situation[.] And I think until the Yahoo situation clarifies itself one way or another, it's going to be an overhang on our price," Liddell said in the interview.

One can only assume that Liddell was asked to comment on the stock price in a semi-public forum because employees are freaked out about losing their savings on a rotten Yahoo deal.

And with the looming Saturday deadline – the day by which Microsoft has threatened to go hostile if it doesn't have an agreement with Yahoo – Liddell interestingly again brought up the possibility of walking away.

"We made a decision almost three weeks ago to send a letter saying, 'Hey, it's time to move on' . . . And if we don't consummate a transaction or make significant progress by then, I think we've signaled very publicly, we'll think about our alternatives. And our alternatives then are to try to facilitate a transaction, to possibly go directly to Yahoo shareholders. Or to walk away and go back to our original organic strategy. We'll see what next week brings," Liddell said.

Photo: Courtesy Microsoft

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