Yahoo investors could be put off by low bids

Potential offers for technology company Yahoo are reportedly due on Wednesday, but investors might be put off by the so-far low bids for the company.

The final selection of bidders will take place around 18 July, according to Recode. Potential suitors are Verizon, which bought AOL last year, and Quicken Loans with financial backing from philanthropist Warren Buffet. Other bidders for the former Silicon Valley heavyweight are from private equity firms such as TPG.

Depending on if patent and estate assets are included, bids have so-far ranged from $3.5bn to over $5bn. In comparison to Microsoft’s £26bn acquisition of professional social network website LinkedIn last month, bids for Yahoo are very low.

In June the Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon made a bid of about $3bn in the second round. The range is lower than the price Yahoo’s web properties were expected to attract. In April bankers thought that the company would be sold for $4bn to $8bn.

Sale presentations by Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer revealed the scope of the company’s decline in online advertising business, which could also to dampen bids for Yahoo.

Yahoo’s core web business is for sale along with its Alibaba Group Holding and Yahoo Japan businesses. At the beginning of June, Yahoo confirmed it was exploring the sale of about 3,000 patents which could haul more than $1bn.

Yahoo is reportedly the fifth most visited website in the world. According to Similar Web, Yahoo attracted 6.5bn monthly page views in May 2016. Yahoo was part of the initial 1990s internet boom, but lost ground to the rapid rise of Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Shares in Yahoo fell 1.3% to 37.49p at 1548 BST.