PE firm Silver Lake weighing bid for Yahoo: report
16 Sep 2011
Silver Lake, the California-based private equity firm that invests in technology and technology-enabled industries is weighing a bid for Internet firm Yahoo, Bloomberg today reported, citing two people involved in the deliberations.
As part of a deal, Silver Lake, which has $14 billion in assets under management, would sell off Yahoo's Asian assets and then attempt to turn around the main operations or find a buyer for it, the financial news agency quoted the people as saying, who requested not to be identified.
Representatives of Silver Lake have approached other companies to gauge interest in purchasing Yahoo's main business, said the report.
The news comes after Bloomberg last week reported, citing two unidentified sources, that America Online (AOL), once the titan of the internet era, had approached Yahoo to discuss a merger. (See: AOL, Yahoo talk merger: report)
With media speculating on various interested suitors, Yahoo, is considering selling itself after sacking its CEO Carol Bartz earlier this month. The Yahoo board fired Bartz over the telephone, ending her rocky two-year tenure marked by stagnant growth and a bitter rift with Chinese partner Alibaba, following a controversial deal.
Yahoo's main Asian assets are its 43-per cent stake in Alibaba and a 35-per cent stake in Yahoo Japan Corp, a joint venture with Japanese internet company SoftBank, which account for about 80 per cent of the company's market value.
It is also likely that Alibaba Group chairman, Jack Ma, may make a bid for Yahoo in order to regain the stake he sold six years ago.