Jack Ma, founder and chief executive officer of e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, reportedly revealed to an audience at Stanford University on Saturday that he is interested in acquiring the US-based internet company Yahoo!.
According to Reuters, who reported the story, Yahoo! currently owns about 40% of Alibaba, while in return, Alibaba acquired Yahoo!’s Chinese portal, China Yahoo!. The two firms also reached an agreement in July over the controversial spinning off of Alibaba’s online payment service Alipay.
Ma added that he would be spending the upcoming year in the US in order to learn more about the country and the market. Alibaba was boosted by $50m in funding from online games developer Giant Interactive last month.