Former AOL chief set to bid $30bn for Yahoo!

The former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller is thought to be in talks with investors about buying part or all of Yahoo!.

Miller has been in contact with private equity firms and Middle Eastern wealth funds to raise as much as $30 billion for the search giant, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal.

The report follows The Sunday Times claims that Yahoo! may sell its search business to Microsoft for $20 billion (£13.1 billion), though Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer has repeatedly denied the possibility of a new deal with Yahoo! (see Microsoft dismisses potential deal with Yahoo!).

Last month, Ballmer said: “We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly.”

The Wall Street Journal report claims that Miller, who ran AOL from 2002 to 2006, has teamed up with the former president of Fox Interactive Media Ross Levinsohn to come up with a deal.

Miller and Levinsohn are hoping to come up with a deal worth as much as $22 a share to Yahoo! shareholders to purchase the whole company, including the search business, which would value the search firm at $28 billion to $30 billion.

However, the report also suggested that some of Yahoo!’s investors are still unaware of Miller’s plans.

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