Blackstone, Bain eye Yahoo bid

Sources told Reuters that a deal has not be finalized, and Alibaba, which is predominantly looking to buy the 40% stake that Yahoo holds in Alibaba, has not decided if it will enter into a full-company bid with the firms. Yahoo currently owns a 40% stake in the Chinese B2B platform, and owns 35% of Yahoo Japan, making it the second-largest shareholder in the venture after Softbank.

The newswire added that offering $20 per share would value the full company at $25 billion.

Earlier this month, news surfaced that several prospective buyers of Yahoo signed confidentiality agreements in order to get a closer look at the company's finances. It was said that at least five private equity firms complied with the requirement, but sources at the time said that others declined on the grounds that it would prevent them from forming consortiums. The holdouts reportedly included Silver Lake Partners, Providence Equity Partners, Bain, Hellman & Friedman and Blackstone. Sources added that these firms hoped that Yahoo's Asian joint venture partners, Alibaba Group and Softbank Corp., could also participate in their bids.

Yahoo became the target of buyout firms and trade buyers after CEO Carol Bartz departed in early September. Alibaba's founder Jack Ma (pictured) followed that news by announcing his interest in buying the entire company, and that he had spoken to potential partners that were thought to include Silver Lake and Temasek Holdings.

Also this month, Silver Lake, Digital Sky Technologies, Temasek and Yunfeng Capital, a VC fund set up by Ma, purchased a 5% stake in Alibaba, worth $1.6 billion.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Greater China
• Buyouts
• The Blackstone Group
• Bain Capital Asia
• buyout
• TMT
• China
• Japan