Rumors Of Yelp Or Salesforce Deals Appear To Be Fading
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - The buzz is wearing off a couple of big rumored deals with San Francisco tech firms.
Yelp's (YELP) stock skyrocketed on reports it was considering selling itself, with a host of big-name firms being possible suitors.
According to The Street, you can scratch Google and Yahoo off of that list, as Ironfire Capital managing partner Eric Jackson writes that Yelp's $3.6-billion market valuation is too rich for Yahoo, and he doesn't think Google is interested as it already tried once to buy Yelp.
Jackson instead thinks there's a good chance that a foreign company like Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba or Japanese Internet service provider Rakuten, may snap up Yelp, as each would love to take advantage of Yelp's local advertising business.
Cloud software leader Salesforce (CRM) has been experiencing something similar, as its stock shot higher on reports it was approached as takeover candidate, but the short list of players - like Oracle and SAP - have one-by-one either said they didn't approach Salesforce or are now not sure about making a bid like Microsoft, leaving IBM as the most likely candidate if Microsoft doesn't step up.
