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China's Alibaba Interested In Buying Yahoo

Posted by timothy on from the maybe-they'll-have-cuter-jingles dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Alibaba is a company that most Americans probably haven't heard of, but it's a hugely important Internet player in China, owning the Yahoo! China site as well as a host of other marketplace Websites. It's 40 percent owned by Yahoo, but now, in what seems a bit like a snake eating its own tail, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma has declared his interest in buying the embattled Internet portal outright." The San Francisco Chronicle has a Bloomberg News article with more details; they report that Alibaba is actually one of three parties looking into a joint bid for Yahoo, the others being the equity firm Silver Lake and Russian tech investor Digital Sky Technologies.

7 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. perhaps a snake extracting its tail by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Alibaba's been interested in buying back the Yahoo-owned portion of the company for a while, and with Yahoo's current stock price and the success of Alibaba, just buying Yahoo might be a reasonably cost-effective way to buy itself back.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  2. Please no by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 2

    Alibaba's main business is to try to connect no-name chinese manufacturers with distributors elsewhere. The site is garbage. If you thoughtYahoo was bad before... *shudder*

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    I call it 'The Aristocrats'
  3. Re:I'm confused by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Informative

    they report that Alibaba is actually one of three parties looking into a joint bid for Yahoo, the others being the equity firm Silver Lake and Russian tech investor Digital Sky Technologies.

    So how's the joke supposed to go now? "In capitalist Russia, Chinese employee buys YAHOO!"?

    In Soviet China Yahoo searches for YOU!

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  4. Sell off America by koan · · Score: 2

    I noticed several brand names I associate with "America" are now owned by some one else, I wonder if selling off Yahoo would the loss of all the American jobs hired there.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/08/american-brands-in-foreig_n_755900.html#s152955&title=Budweiser

    But hey what's in a name right.

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    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Sell off America by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      The Chicoms are too smart to make a bonehead move like that.

      Yeah, the last thing the Chinese need is for their country to be flooded with Communists.

  5. Re:Hooray for hypocrisy! by Niac · · Score: 2

    That isn't hypocrisy. It's self-interest. Their policies are internally consistent: they desire a strong China. Not permitting foreign investors, and permitting local investments to be made in foreign markets makes for a strong China. Not that I agree with it, mind you. But that's how it appears.

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    http://gabrielcain.com/
  6. Re:Hooray for hypocrisy! by hackingbear · · Score: 2

    Actually what you said isn't quite true. Alibaba, along with most top Internet companies in China, are technically foreign companies. The holding companies are registered in Cayman Island and Bermuda; the operating subsidiaries are Chinese companies. These companies all have foreign investors including Silicon Valley venture capital. Alibaba, for example, is still 40% owned by Yahoo. Softbank also owns a big trunk.

    The Chinese government's intend is to protect the market from foreign companies which have had huge financial powers; if unrestricted, these greedy foreign companies will just grab over the whole market when the domestic players were still young and vulnerable and Chinese people will stuck in low end manufacturing forever without marketing power.

    But lawyers know how to work around the Chinese rules, like they do to US laws. So very often, those rules are ineffective in practice.