The prospect of such a move reflects growing frustration with the slowness and structure of potential asset sales, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed people familiar with the situation.
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Last Friday Reuters reported that Yahoo! had signed confidentiality agreements with several parties interested in buying all or part of the company, allowing these suitors to get a closer look at its books. Signing such agreements would preclude those parties from partnering together in bids for the company or its Asian assets. Also Yahoo! shareholder Daniel Loeb of investment firm Third Point issued a letter late last week that called for Jerry Yang, Yahoo!'s co-founder to step down from the board. Speculation about Yahoo!'s fate began in earnest again when the company ousted Carol Bartz as CEO in early September and hired investment bankers to undertake a strategic review of its options to maximize shareholder value. Scenarios that have been discussed in the press have included a full company sale, a divestiture of minority owned Asian assets like Alibaba and Yahoo Japan or a push for growth in online ad sales through acquisitions. The Bloomberg report raises the possibility that a host of companies could be involved in a bidding process for Yahoo even if they haven't signed confidentiality agreements. What's still unclear is whether a bid will actually emerge and if it will potentially involve one party or multiple hostile buyers.Alibaba, like Microsoft, is already closely entwined with Yahoo! and the Chinese Web giant's CEO, Jack Ma, has said that he's "very interested" in buying Yahoo!, a deal which would significantly boost the firm's U.S. presence. Strategic buyers are also allegedly looking at Yahoo! and include Google(GOOG), which is reportedly speaking with private equity firms to help finance a deal, and Microsoft(MSFT), which attempted to buy the Web giant for $44 billion in 2008. Bloomberg says that while neither Microsoft nor Google have signed non-disclosure agreements, private equity firm TPG Capital has.
The company may also resist any sales and focus on its growing overall second place presence to Google in online ad sales. Yahoo! announced an online display advertising agreement with AOL(AOL) and Microsoft after Tuesday's closing bell.
Yahoo! hired Carol Bartz in early 2009 to reorganize the company to make it simpler and more focused on online display ad revenue instead of its search business. That year the Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company sold its search business to Microsoft's(MSFT) Bing, ceding operations of its biggest and once dominant revenue line.
Yahoo!'s stock has surged 20% since Bartz was fired and the company began exploring new ways to create shareholder value.After firing Bartz, Yahoo! confirmed in a letter to employees that it had hired advisers to consider strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value -- code for potential sales. In the letter, Yahoo! said it needed to "reignite" its business and anticipate how consumers would take in media content in the future.Earlier in November, Yahoo! struck a deal to buy Interclick(ICLK) for $270 million to bolster its display ads business in its biggest buyout since 2007, potentially signaling that Yahoo!'s strategic review won't yield a full company sale.Instead, the Interclick deal may signal a push by management to grow its stalling online ad revenue. Yet to be seen is what the review will yield and whether antitrust concerns about online ad competition will limit Yahoo!'s alternatives.In October, Bloomberg reported that the company might sell its Asian assets and give proceeds to shareholders instead of selling itself entirely, citing five sources familiar with the situation. --.
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