Search engine company Google is reportedly planning to help finance bidders who aim to buy Yahoo.
Bloomberg reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that Google is mulling over an option to provide financing for the purchase of Yahoo by another company or a group of bidders.
However, the source has also added that Google may not go ahead with the offer and that it has not engaged in serious discussions with would-be partners.
In September, Yahoo’s board had sacked chief executive Carol Bartz. She was replaced by CFO Tim Morse in an interim capacity. Bartz informed employees about the bnews in a memo. She said that she was fired by chairman Roy Bostock over the phone.
The move ended a rocky two-year run marked by stagnating growth and a bitter rift with Chinese partner Alibaba. In recent years Yahoo lost ground to Google and social network Facebook. Yahoo has been constanly losing it market share in selling online graphical and video ads to these firms. According to comScore, the number of minutes that US website visitors spend on Yahoo sites per month has dropped 33% since Bartz took over the firm. It is believed that the company is planing a renewed strategy to pursue growth.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal said that Google has discussed about the financing deal with at least two-private equity firms. It is also said that the private-equity company Silver Lake, Alibaba Group and Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies had discussed a potential joint bid for Yahoo.
