The owner of the Daily Mail has confirmed that it is in talks with “half a dozen” private equity companies about putting in a bid for Yahoo, according to reports.
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The second possible scenario would involve a private-equity firm acquiring Yahoo and merging its news and media assets into a new company, including the Mail’s online platforms, such as DailyMail.com.
Previous reports listed other Yahoo suitors as United States telecommunications provider Verizon, Google parent company Alphabet and Time Inc.
Earlier Yahoo’s bidding deadline was Monday but the company has extended it to April 18. CEO Marissa Mayer has taken various steps to revive the company, including sharpening its focus on mobile sites and services.
In January 2014 to further build scale in the US, DMGT acquired Elite Daily, a news site that calls itself “The Voice of Generation Y”.
Yahoo’s media assets would augment Daily Mail’s growing online presence in the U.S.by adding some of country’s biggest news, weather and messaging portals.
This would appear a close fit with DMGT’s hugely successful mailonline.com, which boasts millions of monthly users and is the most read english-speaking news website in the world.
Daily Mail & General Trust has joined the bidders eyeing up Yahoo.
An industry analyst said a Yahoo deal with Daily Mail would be positive for the business helping it to sell more advertising in the US and reduce the dependence it has on shrinking sales of advertising from its British newspaper business. After some shareholders flip-flopped on whether the company should spin out its Alibaba holdings into a standalone company, the remaining option was to part with Yahoo’s core business.
If and when Daily Mails submits a bid, there could be two possibilities.
DMGT is interested in taking over Yahoo’s news and media properties to boost its own operation.
DMGT shares were flat in early trading at 695p after initially falling 0.4%.
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Yahoo had also held talks with Verizon (NYSE: VZ – news), IAC/Interactive Corp. and CBS Corp., one of the persons cited by the Journal said.
