Yahoo, fighting takeover, forms partnerships with WPP

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Yahoo! Inc., fighting billionaire investor Carl Icahn's bid to take control of its board, agreed to give advertising company WPP Group Plc access to its online advertising auction service to bolster ad sales. The deal allows agencies of WPP to buy digital display advertising across the Internet, while Web sites using Yahoo's advertising auction service Right Media get greater access to WPP's clients, the two companies said in an e-mailed statement.

WPP, the world's second-biggest advertising company, will use its online ad agency 24/7 Real Media Inc., which helps to place ads on relevant Web sites, to build a proprietary media trading platform connected to Yahoo's Right Media. London-based WPP's planning and ad buying GroupM unit will be able to use data about customer behavior gathered through the cooperation.

Icahn named 10 nominees to challenge Yahoo's current board during elections at the company's July 3 annual meeting, claiming it shouldn't have rejected Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5 billion acquisition offer. Yahoo chief executive officer Jerry Yang faces mounting pressure to show investors he made the right decision to rebuff advances from the world's biggest software maker.

"We are committed to providing the technology, insights and media expertise required to deliver the most relevant audience across the Web,'' Hilary Schneider, Yahoo's executive vice-president of global partner solutions, said in today's statement.

WPP, the owner of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and the Hill & Knowlton public relations firm, aims to tap faster growth of emerging markets and services such as Internet marketing.

Martin Sorrell, WPP's chief executive officer, said last week in an interview on cable network CNBC that he's disappointed that the negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo failed as the combination would have "balanced'' the Web search market.

WPP rose 7.5 pence, or 1.2%, to 638.5 pence as of 10:34 a.m. in London trading, giving the advertising company a market value of 7.5 billion pounds ($14.6 billion).

Ads linked to Web searches, a market in which Yahoo has trailed rival Google Inc., may increase 86% to $19.7 billion in 2009 from $10.6 billion in 2006, according to estimates from CLSA Ltd.