sorry, i didn't mentioned who are the shareholders? when m&a takes place its all about biggest shareholders who are mostly private equity or big venture funds and not the retail shareholders like you and me ... while customer and employees are located world over - for example a yahoo email user in a small village of china should also be considered as a value stakeholder because those type of users are in millions and in the same way an employee in the yahoo's r&d dept. in india is also as important as any other stakeholder.... so what would happen to ms if these 2 stakeholders switch their loyalty to the competitor (say google) after merger ???????

I think 'yahoo email users in china' might applaud the merger:

Yahoo Says It Gave China Internet Data: Journalist Jailed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09...