Alibaba's Ma Approached on Yahoo! Bid
HANGZHOU, Zhejiang, China (
) --
Alibaba's
founder Jack Ma has been approached by a group of private-equity investors to gauge his interest in joining a bid to buy
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
,
Reuters
reports, citing a source close to the situation.
Ma has yet to make any decision about participating in the potential bid, said the source,
Reuters
reports. The source didn't unveil the names of any private-equity firms that may be involved.
Alibaba is 40% held by Yahoo! and is China's biggest e-commerce company.
The source told
Reuters
it was unclear if the bid attempt was a new one or one in which
AOL
(AOL)
was previously said to be looking at.
It was reported Monday that
AOL had hired financial advisers
to explore strategic options for the company, one of which included a possible tie-up with Yahoo!.
Yahoo! isn't in active discussions with financial or strategic partners, and isn't currently reviewing or eliciting any proposals, a source close to Yahoo! told
Reuters
.
Alibaba spokesman John Spelich had no comment for
Reuters
.
Yahoo! bought its stake in Alibaba.com in 2005 for about $1 billion.
Alibaba said in September that talks to buy back shares from Yahoo! collapsed, notes
Bloomberg
. Alibaba said at the time it had "no intention" of raising the matter again.
-- Written by Joseph Woelfel
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