Yahoo is up for sale with Microsoft in the frame

WOUNDED INTERNET GIANT Yahoo is being hawked to potential suitors just days after its board sacked the CEO.

Last week Yahoo's board of directors unceremoniously sacked CEO Carol Bartz, only for her to fire back in an interview calling board members "doofuses". Now it seems that Yahoo's board has started to look for suitors to buy the internet portal, and Microsoft is once again in the frame.

Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo before when Jerry Yang, founder and then CEO was at the helm. Yang rebuffed Microsoft's seemingly generous offer for Yahoo and that cost him his position as CEO, only for Bartz to come in and sign a search and advertising deal with Microsoft months later. Now it seems that Microsoft could get a second shot at acquiring what is still a major internet property.

AllthingsD is reporting that Microsoft isn't the only company in the hunt for Yahoo, and that the list includes a number of venture capital firms and even Yahoo's Chinese partner Alibaba Group.

Daniel Loeb, investor in the hedge fund Third Point, which has a 5.1 per cent share of Yahoo, joined other investors in putting putting pressure on Yahoo's board. According to AllthingsD's sources, Loeb called Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock a "fool" and went as far as asking for Yang's help in ousting him.

Loeb wrote in a letter sent to Yahoo, "It is time that certain members of this Board were held accountable for its past failures and their individual roles. Accordingly, we insist that Mr. Bostock, who championed Ms. Bartz's hiring and led the charge against the Microsoft deal, promptly resign from the Board."

Even though Yahoo has fallen a long way from the pedestal it occupied during the dotcom boom, it still has considerable assets, especially in the fast growing Asian market. That has resulted in a valuation in the region of $18bn and creates complexity for any sale that might take place.

Yahoo has seemingly stagnated during the social networking boom and has, in the last few years, become more about the soap opera surrounding its executive management than its services. Nevertheless, if Microsoft can get its hands on Yahoo, it might finally be able to compete with Google for advertising revenue. µ