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Yahoo! ditches Kelkoo
UK private equity group goes shopping

By Tim Ferguson

Published: Monday 24 November 2008

Yahoo! has sold the European shopping and price comparison site Kelkoo to a UK-based private equity firm.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman confirmed to silicon.com that Jamplant completed the acquisition of the company on 21 November.

Yahoo! bought Kelkoo in 2004 for €475m as it looked to expand its presence outside the US.

Although Yahoo! gave no information about the reasons for the sale, it referred to Kelkoo as a non-strategic business, suggesting it no longer fitted with the company's future direction.

Yahoo! has not put a figure on Kelkoo's sale price but according to former Kelkoo CEO Pierre Chappaz's blog, the amount is under €100m.

"Kelkoo has found its freedom once again and I'm very happy about it for my numerous friends in Grenoble, Paris, London and in various other capitals (Kelkoo currently employs 270 people). Innovation ought not to be slow to come back and already, in Britain, Kelkoo has just opened a cashback service. I'd bet that a similar opening in France is imminent... In terms of other projects, there's also talk of a US launch...we'll see, in any event, things are happening," he said.

Yahoo! is currently looking for a new CEO after Jerry Yang announced that he was to step down from the role after 18 months at the helm.

He will assume the position of chief Yahoo! - the role he held before taking over from former CEO Terry Semel in 2007.

Yang's departure led to speculation that an acquisition by Microsoft might be back on the cards but Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, reiterated last week that his company has "moved on" from February's $44.6bn bid for Yahoo!.