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Alibaba May Be Going Private (YHOO)

One of China’s largest e-commerce players is Alibaba Group Holding Inc., but the company is perhaps best know in the US for its relationship with Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which owns about 40% of Alibaba and has been trying to…

By Paul Ausick
Published February 21, 2012, 7:01am ET · 1 min read

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One of China’s largest e-commerce players is Alibaba Group Holding Inc., but the company is perhaps best know in the US for its relationship with Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), which owns about 40% of Alibaba and has been trying to find a way to shed that stake for quite a while now. The problem has been how to do that without slamming shareholders with a very large tax burden.

Alibaba may have found the solution though. A report from Bloomberg News cites an unnamed source with saying the the company is on the brink of getting a $3 billion loan from a consortium of six banks, and that Alibaba will use the funds to take the company private.

By taking Alibaba private and forming a new company, at least a portion of the shares owned by Yahoo could be bought back, putting some cash in Yahoo shareholders’ pockets.

Alibaba’s most recent quarter was a fizzle, and the website is losing subscribers following a fraud scheme run by phony vendors.

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Paul Ausick

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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