Yahoo! may soon have bidders at its door

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. technology giant Microsoft Corp. is reviving its pursuit of search engine Yahoo! Inc., this time with partners, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

One deal currently in the works is to purchase Yahoo! with help from private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and the Canada Pension Fund Investment Board with Microsoft providing the largest share of the funding, the Journal said Thursday.

In 2008, Yahoo! turned down a $44.6 billion offer from Microsoft, and it has since fallen on hard times, its share value falling 44 percent since then.

But Yahoo! still has an enormous presence on the Internet with 700 million visitors each month to its news service Web sites.

Analysts have said a bid of $16 to $18 per share might get Yahoo!'s attention. That would give the company a market capitalization of better than $20 billion and a 12.5 percent premium above its share price of $5.94 at Wednesday's close of market.

Complicating the situation, Silver Lake recently invested in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., an Internet firm based in China that runs shopping and search engine services.

Yahoo! Owns 40 percent of Alibaba, which is pegged as a fast-growing company.

Alibaba Chief Executive Jack Ma has said he is also interested in buying Yahoo! Jerry Yang, a Yahoo! co-founder has said Yahoo! would be open to reviewing bids from Alibaba and other firms.