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In the passages below, short-seller Dave Kranzler has captured the folly of this deal about as cogently as is possible:
MSFT’s valuation is in and of itself is insane given it’s debt-addled balance sheet and deteriorating business model. Microsoft Windows 8 was a total abortion and Windows 10 is not much better. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together uses the bare bones Windows 7 and the freeware Linux-based Microsoft surrogate software, which can be downloaded for free (or a gratis donation) and is superior to MSFT’s crap (see OpenOffice.org, for instance).
Now Microsoft has decided to layer nuclear waste on top of its own toxicity by acquiring Linked-In for over $26 billion. This is a tragic, if not catastrophic, use of shareholder cash……
Microsoft’s acquisition of LNKD is about as idiotic as it would be to try and convince someone that the sun rises in the west and sets in east. If anything, this deal is emblematic of an American systemic Ponzi scheme that has gone “off the rails.”
Linked-In is nothing more than a glorified jobs networking bulletin board. Sure, as the system continues to unravel and more “business services” people lose their jobs, there might be a big jump in “clicks and eyeballs” on Linked-In. But this will be out of desperation trying to find anyone on the Linked-In board who might offer a ray of hope for employment. But no one will spend their unemployment check on LNKD’s idiotic premium services. That will be money much better spent on whiskey and weed, which is exactly what MSFT’s upper management and board of directors must be ingesting to have come up with this idea. MSFT is my lowest risk short-sell idea of the year….
Oh, yes, Jim Cramer has been pounding the table hard in favor of the deal. The Bear Stearns moment must be close at hand.
more http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-15/bubble-news-nosebleed-section