Yahoo! brands itself with an exclamation mark, but maybe a question mark is more appropriate.
As in, why would Canada Pension Plan Investment Board be interested in Yahoo? After all, isn't the company the Internet equivalent of a Studebaker?
Yes, Yahoo is an afterthought for many internet users. But it still has a huge base of visitors that ranks among the top few in the world, despite all the hype around smaller sites like Twitter.
Beyond that, there are, some analysts argue, hidden gems in Yahoo.
One of them is hiding in plain sight in China. The market is very familiar with Yahoo's stake in Alibaba Group Holding Inc., which is worth $14-billion, or about two-thirds of the market cap of Yahoo.
Through its investment in Alibaba, Yahoo could benefit from a potential initial public offering of an affiliated e-commerce business that some believe the market is overlooking.
The business, called Alipay, is the largest online payment system in the world. Investors have discounted the Alipay stake after Alibaba founder Jack Ma spun out the Alipay business. Yahoo claimed it hadn't approved the transaction, leading to a nasty fight.
Some investors dumped Yahoo because of a perceived loss of Alipay's value. Notably, investor David Einhorn sold a big stake, saying that the situation was "not what we signed up for."
The spat has since been resolved with an agreement to ensure Alibaba is paid between $2-billion and $6-billion should Alipay go public. That's a big option embedded in Yahoo.
The expected early 2012 IPO of another Chinese e-commerce company called 360buy.com, which at a potential $5-billion would be the largest U.S. internet IPO in history, could show investors just how much value there is in Alipay, according to one analyst who believes that a buyout of Yahoo would be canny at these prices.
So why hasn't the value of Alipay been more widely trumpeted?
Some of the answer may lie with Mr. Ma.
Mr. Ma might not be interested in combating the impression that Alipay is worth more than the market is letting on, because that would drive up the value of Yahoo, and Alibaba is looking at buying out Yahoo.
So what are the odds that CPPIB actually participates in a bid?
The fund is definitely kicking tires. But keep in mind that CPPIB is now at a size where it's likely to show up in the potential buyers' list for any sizeable private equity transaction.