Yelp turns down Google’s attempted $500 million buyout
Last week Google was close to inking a deal to buy local review site Yelp for as much as $500 million, but now there are reports that Yelp is turning down its big payday.
Yelp would have been the crown on Google’s Local Search strategy with a huge community of reviewers that rate everything from restaurants to dry cleaners. There’s no word on what spooked CEO Jeremy Stoppleman to make him call off the deal.
The terms were rumored to be all but finalized, so Michael Arrington of Techcrunch assumes that a Google competitor may have made a strategic deal with Yelp to counter the acquisition. Yelp may be able to stand alone, but most startups would relish the opportunity to sell to Google.
Could it be that Yelp wants to go it alone or is this a tactic to get more cash out of Google? There are no answers as to why the deal fell apart, but you have to imagine that Yelp’s backers want to know why.
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