http://finance.yahoo.com/news/does-...ers-unlikely-here-is-full-list-163500964.html I had known of Time and Verizon being interested in Yahoo, but there are more likely bidders. Frankly, I think it was a mistake of Verizon to buy AOL -- they should dump it -- and I hope Verizon comes to their senses and do not enter a bid (or are outbid).
It's really sad that Yahoo is already selling. I never imagined that it will go bankrupt and from what I had ready in the papers yesterday, Yahoo is going to close shop soon if it doesn't find a good buyer. The CEO had failed in its bid to uplift the finances of Yahoo amid the layoffs. But I guess the company had been overspending since it has far too many employees. Now it is too late to trim down and the only recourse left is a buyout to salvage the name of Yahoo. Other than that, closing shop is the natural course to ensue.
I just do not see it making sense for anyone but Microsoft or Google. Yahoo has a ton of content, but it´s business model failed because it was never able to monetize it enough. Any other company buying Yahoo is just going to have the same business model, and will ultimately have subpar results. Only Google or Microsoft, because of their strong ad systems would be able to create value from the content. I still think it will be MSFT.
Had a look at at an article earlier which explains why Verizon wants to buy Yahoo. They expect traditional telecom business to slow and when that happens they could money from ads displayed when anyone visits any of Yahoo's sites which gets lots of traffic. This is why they may be more than willing to outbid all of the other interested buyers.
Looking at the valuation that Yahoo think they're worth, I'd be surprised if there was even 9 willing to pay that amount of money. I can see it being sold for maybe half that, as even at that price a lot of money is going to have to be invested to bring it back to anywhere near where it was a few years ago.
But that is true of Yahoo now. Yahoo already has ´ads displayed´ and it has shown to not be a viable business for them. There is nothing that Verizon could change that would make a difference. MSFT and Google both have huge existing ad networks, so would probably see about a 20% increase in revenues generated from the Yahoo properties. I also think Alibaba could do it also, and increase the value of a pageview over what Yahoo currently does.