LOS ANGELES, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft denied that its offer to buyout Yahoo was contingent on the removal of the Internet firm's top management and the board of directors, it was reported on Tuesday.
In a statement issued late Monday, Microsoft said Yahoo misrepresented its latest proposal, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
Microsoft also said it never issued a "take it or leave it" ultimatum, as Yahoo had charged, according to the report.
The dueling statements illustrate how frayed the relationship between the two companies has become as they struggle to hammer out a deal before Yahoo's annual meeting on Aug. 1. That's when shareholders will decide the outcome of a proxy battle launched by dissident shareholder Carl Icahn to take control of Yahoo and force a sale to Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Icahn has provided a detailed accounting of the deal he intends to close with Microsoft if he is successful, the report said. Icahn claimed his deal, which amounts to a partial sale of Yahoo, was worth 33 dollars a share.
Microsoft previously offered to buy all of Yahoo for 33 dollars a share but withdrew the offer after Yahoo sought more.
Under Icahn's deal, Yahoo would sell its search business to Microsoft for 7.7 billion dollars. Shareholders would receive 16.25 dollars a share in a distribution made up of cash and stock, and Yahoo would be left as a stand-alone company that provides Internet content.
Icahn said Microsoft would also guarantee 2.3 billion dollars a year in cost savings and payments to Yahoo for any search that started on a Yahoo content page. Microsoft had previously offered to guarantee only 1 billion dollars of revenue per year; however, it had also offered to pay 35 dollars a share for a 16 percent stake in Yahoo.
"Heretofore, Microsoft had been unwilling to even come close to making this guarantee," Icahn wrote in a letter to Yahoo shareholders.
