Facebook 'may be subject of bidding war '

27th September 2007

The rumoured Microsoft bid for a share of social networking website Facebook may start a bidding war, one newspaper has suggested.

A report in today's Times lists US search engine Google and media network Viacom as two potential suitors should Microsoft open the bidding or even be rebuffed.

Recent reports placed the value of Microsoft's bid at between £150 to £250 million for a five per cent share.

Those figures would place the value of the whole site at around £5 billion.

Facebook is the most popular social networking site of them all at present, with around 42 million users signed up.

It has previously turned down a buyout offer of £500 million from web portal Yahoo!, according to the Times.

Yahoo! itself is rumoured by investment blog Wall Street 24/7 to be a potential Microsoft target should the Facebook deal fall through.