In what could be the first sign of a potential buyout, Microsoft has signed a confidentiality agreement with Yahoo to get access to the company’s financial information, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Citing a “source familiar with the matter,” the report says Microsoft is one of many companies now combing through Yahoo’s business. Private equity firms KKR, TPG Capital, and Silver Lake Partners are also said to be interested in buying minority stakes of up to 20 percent, with plans to eventually own controlling interest in the company.
KKR and Silver Lake recently invested a substantial amount of money into domain registrar GoDaddy, a deal reported worth $2.25 billion.
The interest from Microsoft is especially notable since the software giant once before tried to buy the company back in 2008. The offered price was reported to be almost $45 billion, or $33 a share. Today Yahoo trades for about $15 a share. Commenting on the failure to work out a deal three years ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: “Sometimes you’re lucky.”
Now it seems Microsoft is once again looking a buying Yahoo, or at least a sizable chunk of it. Why the renewed interest? Microsoft wouldn’t comment to Mashable on the matter, but it appears the company is interested in preserving its partnership with Yahoo on search.
The two worked out an agreement in 2009 where Yahoo would use Microsoft’s Bing search technology, and Microsoft would serve up ads in Yahoo searches. Yahoo is still the second most popular search engine, according to comScore, so Microsoft has good reason to keep that partnership alive.
Yahoo has been struggling for years. Although its search and email services were once dominant, the company has failed to respond credibly as Google and other competitors gained market share. The company fired its CEO, Carol Bartz, in September. Former CFO Tim Morse is the current interim CEO.
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