The Times newspaper has reported that its
parent company News Corporation is in buyout talks with Yahoo! to
rebuffMicrosoft's £23bn hostile takeover
offer.
The report states that preliminary talks have taken place over
the past few days.
The deal could see News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, merge its
MySpace website together with Yahoo's online assets by taking a 20%
stake in the search engine group. News Corp declined to comment to
The Times.
Yahoo is poised to fight an unsolicited offer from Microsoft.
Yahoo has suffered eight declining quarters of profitability,
according to results.
Microsoft launched a cash offer of $31 per share for Yahoo!,
valuing the group at a 62% premium to its closing price the day
before the approach was made public.
Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!,
rejected the offer saying that it undervalues the company.
Microsoft said that it's offer was fair and that it might take
its offer direct to shareholders.