Yahoo trying to avoid possible AOL bid by hiring Goldman Sachs?

21st October, 2010 by adina
Tags: , , ,

A recent Bloomberg report says that Yahoo will hire Goldman Sachs in order to prevent a takeover bid. No bids have been placed by now, but AOL was rumoured to put an offer. Bankers, private equity firms and Yahoo investors have been trying to takeover Yahoo by means of AOL of News Corp, according to the sources.

A takeover of this kind would allow the company to focus on media and be more prepared to compete with the giant search Google.

Another concern of Yahoo is represented by the 39 percent of stake it detains in Alibaba Group Holding, worth $10 billion. The latter is China’s biggest company in the e-commerce area and has recently advanced an offer to buy its stake. Discussions have fallen apart in June. Like Yahoo, Alibaba has dropped Yahoo’s native search engine in favor of Bing from Microsoft. In 2005, Alibaba sold its stake for $1 billion and ownership of Yahoo’s Chinese unit. In case Yahoo would be taken over, the agreement stipulates that Alibaba would be allowed to buy back its stake.

If there is an intention of AOL to buy out Yahoo, private-equity funding would be needed unless a reverse merger involving managerial control was negotiated. Unofficially linked to the deal, Silver Lake may work with AOL.


     

    Readers Comments