Chinese ecommerce giant Aliaba Group is said to seek up to US$ 4 billion in debt financing to buy back the 40% stake in Alibaba which is currently held by Yahoo.
Yahooโs stake in Alibaba made up of huge portion of the companyโs market cap which according to some analysts could worth up to US$ 9 billion. Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma recently said at an industry event that he would be โvery interestedโ in buying Yahoo while Alibaba was reportedly prepared to make a bid. News had it that Alibaba and Japanโs Softbank were negotiating with some PEs about offering a concerted bid, including Blackstone Group LP (BX) and Bain Capital LLC.
Yahoo is now undergoing a strategic restructure that the company has intention to get rid of its valuable yet remote Asia properties party because thereโs minor chance to achieve synergy between the properties in and out of its homeland. However, by selling its stake in Alibaba would incur a huge tax bill, so a BusinessInsider article said that Alibaba wanted to buy Hulu and then trade it to Yahoo for the latterโs Alibaba stake, in which case Yahoo can cash out its stakes without paying too much tax and Alibaba can finally buy back its shares. Itโs just, it seems that Huluโs parent company hasnโt deciding on a sellout yet.
