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Private firms ready to join News Corp, AOL on Yahoo deal
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 14 October 2010, 18:17 IST
Bangalore: Several private equity firms have approached Internet and media companies including Murdoch's News Corp and AOL in recent weeks to gauge their interest in buying out Yahoo. The news comes as Yahoo, the number two search engine in the U.S. behind Google, struggles to revive its revenue growth and to rebuild its buzz among consumers amid competition from social networking sites such as Facebook.
AOL is keen on gaining scale and snagging content to re-kindle growth. The Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying private equity firms were exploring the possibility of teaming up with AOL on a joint bid, which could give AOL the content and online eyeballs it needs to become a news and entertainment powerhouse.
Talks with News Corp and AOL began about two weeks ago and intensified in recent days, but Yahoo had not yet been approached as talks were still in their early stages. Top discussions includes the involvement of Alibaba Group in buying back Yahoo's 40 percent stake in the Chinese firm and also about Yahoo's selling off assets to rival media and technology companies. Another could involve AOL combining its operations with Yahoo in a reverse merger.
Speculation of private equity interest in Yahoo, which is struggling to rekindle growth and stem an exodus of senior executives to rivals, has surfaced sporadically in past months.Silver Lake Partners was among the firms in very preliminary, recent discussions about acquisition scenarios.
