Alibaba Is 'Very Interested' in Buying Yahoo

Yahoo's future is uncertain and that's the only certain thing we know about the company. Despite initially denying it, Yahoo is entertaining the idea of a sale. But, despite its lackluster performance in recent years, the company is still worth more than $16 billion, 11.8 billion Euro.

So it's going to take someone with deep pockets to do it. Or, better yet, someone who is already part of Yahoo.

Alibaba's founder and CEO Jack Ma has come out and made it very clear that he is very interested in buying Yahoo as a whole. It's the first time anyone has expressed interest in the company, publicly.

"We are very interested in Yahoo. Our Alibaba group is important to Yahoo and Yahoo is important to us… All the serious buyers interested in Yahoo have talked to us," he said at an event at Stanford University.

Yahoo and Alibaba's story is a long and somewhat convoluted one. In return for Yahoo's Chinese websites, Alibaba paid the US company with a 40 percent stake.

This makes Yahoo one of Alibaba Group's biggest investors. Alibaba Group has several companies under its wings, among which the very valuable Alibaba.com, a publicly traded company.

Alibaba Group owns 70 percent of Alibaba.com, which has a market capitalization of $4.72 billion, 3.49 billion Euro. Yahoo's 40 percent of Alibaba Group is worth a lot of money.

So much so that its stake in Alibaba Group along with a similarly big stake in Yahoo Japan actually make up most of its $16 billion market worth. Which is why Ma is interested in buying Yahoo whole.

He wants to buy back Yahoo's share, but if he springs a little more, he could buy the entire Yahoo for just a few more billions.

Of course, Alibaba has to come up with all those billions in the first place and it's not going to be able to do it alone. Which is why the process is complicated and why it will take a while before any sort of deal is reached.