San Francisco, Nov 24: With the Internet pioneer, Yahoo's financial books not exactly sound, Microsoft has resumed attempts to lift the ailing firm by bidding for it. According to a report on The New York Times, Microsoft is believed to have joined a small pool of suitors that include private equity firms to renew their bid for Yahoo!.

It was earlier reported that Microsoft was collaborating with private investors to put together a multi-billion-dollar offer to buy the internet firm. The idea was trashed by Yahoo in a takeover effort in 2008. After this attempt, Microsoft had since arranged for its Bing search engine to power queries at Yahoo! websites and to share in revenue from online advertising sold by the Sunnyvale, California-based firm.

Microsoft was protecting its interest in Yahoo to ward off any potential competitors from setting its eye on the firm, revealed analysts. Nine other private equity firms are looking to acquire Yahoo along with its its global audience of 700 million monthly visitors that come to the company's various websites that includes Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Sports.

In case of Microsoft buying Yahoo, it would manage to lay its hands on online commerce titan Alibaba that is partially owned by Yahoo. Considered the best in Yahoo's stables, the Chinese firm however feels that the firm has outgrown Yahoo. There was also a strain in the relationship between Alibaba and Yahoo after there was a dispute over Alibaba's online payments platform Alipay. Yahoo was considered the pioneers in the Internet space and enjoys an enviable user base. The firm had earlier rejected Microsoft's offer that offered the company $33 a share, a valuation of more than $47 billion. The offer was snubbed by Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang.

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