Alibaba evinces interest in taking over Yahoo

Six years after Yahoo! Inc paid over $1 billion to emerge as the biggest investor in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the US internet company has now become a potential takeover target for the Chinese internet company.

''We are very interested in Yahoo,'' Alibaba chairman Jack Ma said at a Stanford University event near Palo Alto, California, on 30 September.

He added talks had hit a block on  ''political issues,'' rather than financial ones.

Yahoo, owns 40 per cent of Alibaba and if a deal were to go through it would give Ma more control over the Hangzhou-based e-commerce company he founded 12 years ago.

After Yahoo bought the stake, it has fallen way behind Google Inc as a US search engine, even as China's internet users rose five-fold to almost 500 million.

Analysts say Ma had a strong desire and motivation to take over Yahoo to regain control of Alibaba's destiny. They add Yahoo at the moment, was rudderless in the wake of the ousting of Carol Bartz, and years of declining market share.