UK’s Daily Mail in talks with potential Yahoo bidders

Bloomberg

The publisher of Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper is interested in buying Yahoo! Inc.’s media and news properties, according to a person familiar with the matter, and is in talks to join with potential bidders who would carve up the U.S. Internet company.
“Discussions are at a very early stage,” a representative for Daily Mail said on Monday in an e-mail. “There is no certainty that any transaction will take place.”
Daily Mail has spoken with a half-dozen U.S.-based private-equity firms and a bid would only be made in conjunction with a partner, said the person, who asked not to be named because the plans are private. The Mail could take over Yahoo’s media and news properties while its partner buys the web business, they said. Alternately, a buyer could unite the Mail’s online operation with Yahoo’s media assets in a separate company. Yahoo’s market value is about ten times that of the Mail.
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.
The U.S. site, DailyMail.com, has gained ground since starting in 2012 by focusing on celebrity news and younger readers. It and MailOnline.com in the U.K. are among the most-read news sites in English. While ComScore Inc. ranked Yahoo sites third among U.S. visitors in January with 205 million, Mail had 75 million unique visitors and placed 33rd.
Yahoo said it would explore strategic alternatives, including selling its main Internet operations, earlier this year after scrapping a long-time plan to spin off its valuable Asian assets.