April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc. Chairman Roy Bostock said the Internet company's plan to grow on its own received a ``very positive'' response from investors, countering reports that they would prefer a takeover by Microsoft Corp.

``The feedback that we got from the roadshow and from our investors certainly helps inform the positions that we have taken and will take in the future,'' Bostock said today in an interview in Purchase, New York. He spoke after the annual meeting of Morgan Stanley, where he also sits on the board.

Yahoo presented a three-year plan to shareholders after rejecting Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover offer in February, calling the bid too low. Last week, Microsoft threatened a proxy fight to take control of the board if Yahoo didn't accept the bid. Bostock wouldn't comment on whether Yahoo shareholders would support an independent company if it came to that.

Most shareholders in a survey would rather take Microsoft's current offer than no deal at all, Gene Munster, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray & Co., said yesterday in a report.

``We believe that Yahoo does not have alternative options to satisfy investors,'' wrote Munster, who based his findings on a survey of 20 institutional shareholders.

Shares Drop

Yahoo was unchanged at $27.70 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. After jumping 48 percent on Feb. 1, the day after Microsoft's bid, the stock has declined 2.4 percent.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, dropped 41 cents to $28.75. The shares have fallen about 12 percent since the bid, reducing the value of the half-cash, half-stock proposal. It was valued at $29.17 a share after today's close, down from $31 originally.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is pursuing Yahoo to become a bigger challenger to Google Inc. in online advertising. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said in an April 5 letter that Yahoo has three weeks to accept a deal or become the target of the company's first ever hostile takeover. Yahoo responded yesterday by demanding a higher bid.

``Microsoft will do what Microsoft wants to do,'' Bostock said.

Yahoo said on March 18 it was worth more than Microsoft's offer, citing its No. 2 ranking in search, its operations in Asia and the potential cost savings of the deal. The company said then that sales will climb at least 19 percent in each of the next two years, more than analysts anticipated.

Ad Program

As part of CEO Jerry Yang's plan to win back online ad revenue, the company introduced a program yesterday that lets customers place ads on more Web sites using a single application. The software, called the advertising management platform, or AMP, allows marketers to target users by age, gender and location.

Yahoo has reported eight straight quarters of declining profit as advertisers switch to Google and social networks like Facebook Inc. and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Ballmer said in his letter that Microsoft's 62 percent premium to Yahoo's share price on the day of the offer had become more generous as a slowing economy hurt the Internet ad business. Most shareholders agree with that assessment, he said.

``Given that it's almost certainly just Microsoft bidding against itself, why on earth should they bid higher?'' said Kevin Landis, chief investment officer at Firsthand Capital Management in San Jose, California. He oversees about $600 million in assets, including Microsoft and Yahoo shares.

To contact the reporters on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net; Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 8, 2008 16:10 EDT