As Yahoo stock reaches new lows, it appears a private equity fund that owns a small percentage of Yahoo's stock has proposed a new deal for selling the company to Microsoft.
Mithras Capital Partners, which reportedly owns more than 1.9 million shares, or 0.14 percent of Yahoo, suggested a new deal Thursday to sell the company to Microsoft for $22 a share, a 74 percent premium on Yahoo's current stock price, Reuters reported. A Mithras Capital partner plans to send a letter proposing the deal to Microsoft and Yahoo on Thursday night, Reuters said.
Under the deal, the software giant "would unload Yahoo's Asian assets and nonsearch businesses, extract $3 billion worth of cost savings, and receive $2.8 billion of tax benefits," Reuters said. In other words, the software giant would pay $10.3 billion for Yahoo's search business.
In May, Microsoft walked away from its buyout offer of $47.5 billion to snap up all of Yahoo, only later to return with a partial buyout offer of $9 billion to acquire just the company's search assets.
The Internet company on Thursday dipped for the first time into the $12-a-share range, ending the day at $12.65. That followed Wednesday's crossing into the $13-a-share range. Analysts have noted that these crossings into new dollar ranges are psychological landmarks for investors.