Bidding war sees Yahoo! price top $25bn
Internet portal Yahoo! is expected to be subject to a bid of $25bn from Chinese e-Commerce group Alibaba, backed by private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital.
Such a figure would top last week's bid for a 20% stake in Yahoo by Microsoft, which valued the firm at $20bn.
Alibaba is thought to be keen to buy back a 40% stake owned by Yahoo! By purchasing the entire firm.
Microsoft has found itself under pressure after failing to make money from its Bing search engine, used by Yahoo! to power its searches. The software firm believes that buying out Yahoo would offer a quick route to profitability.
In 2008 Microsoft was part of a consortium which bid $44.6bn for a full takeover.