While Alibaba owns 65 per cent of Yahoo China, its four-member board currently includes one Yahoo representative - chief executive Jerry Yang.
However, Yahoo has not taken a particularly active role in its China operations, with recent staff movements suggesting that Alibaba staff are being called in to aid and abet the ailing Americans. “If the deal goes through, the main concern will be merging the US operations and improving the ad systems; Steve Ballmer will probably be happy to let Jack Ma run Alibaba for a long time,” said David Wolf, president and CEO, Wolf Group Asia.
Yahoo has formally rejected the Microsoft bid, leading to speculation that the latter will make a larger bid. Other interested parties are said to include News Corp and AOL.
