Alibaba Group has approached Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek in a bid to obtain financing to purchase a 40% stake in Yahoo (YHOO.NASDAQ), Bloomberg reported citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation. One source claimed that Temasek was not interested in owning stake in the US search engine, but could offer financing in exchange for a bigger stake in the Alibaba Group, a private firm in which it already owns some equity. Temasek made an investment last month that valued Alibaba, the parent of listed subsidiary Alibaba.com (1688.HKG), at US$32 billion. One source said that Alibaba and Temasek could join with private equity firms Silver Lake and Digital Sky Technologies in a consortium bid for Yahoo, while other said that Goldman Sachs (GS.NYSE), which is acting as Yahoo’s financial advisor, is privately sending out select financial data on the firm to interested parties. Yahoo abruptly fired its CEO Carol Bartz early last month, after her relationship with Alibaba’s Jack Ma was said to undermine confidence in Yahoo.
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