The British newspaper Daily Mail is in talks with potential partners about the direction of the joint bid for the acquisition of Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) Internet assets, considering the plan of buying the problematic Internet company to maintain revenues from advertising on the popular online newspaper.
The parent company Daily Mail - Daily Mail & General Trust - said on Monday that it is in the early stages of negotiations with several parties about a possible bid for the acquisition of Yahoo assets, confirming the Wall Street Journal report that it went to private investment firms with a proposal for cooperation.
"We are negotiating with a number of parties who are potential buyers," - said a representative of DailyMail.com in a message sent by e-mail. He declined to name the private equity companies or to disclose financial details.
The websites DailyMail.com and MailOnline attract 14 million visitors from around the world every day, making them among the most popular news sites in English.
The purchase of Yahoo assets, which includes the search engine, e-mail, as well as the heading "News", "Photos", "Sport" and others, will expand the DailyMail.com coverage and improve the revenue from online advertising.
The deadline for applications for the acquisition of Yahoo expires on April 18.
The publisher Time Inc is also considering partnerships with private equity firm in the struggle for the acquisition of key Internet assets of Yahoo, reported Reuters earlier in April. The possibility for such a deal is also considered by the American telecommunications giant Verizon.
“Buying up portals like Yahoo Sports or Finance would instantly provide the traffic, advertising technology and content distribution platforms the British publisher would need to double down on its expansion ambitions, particularly in the U.S.”, says Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial. With Yahoo, “you have a more global platform. One of the problems is that they have a lot of traffic but they don’t own much content. They’re the front door.”
"U.S. is our priority for growth for MailOnline," says Stephen Wayne Daintith, the finance director of Daily Mail parent.
Shares of Yahoo (YHOO) rose 1.1% to $36.48.