Yahoo was ready to return to the bargaining table with Microsoft over another buyout offer by the latter, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said.

"To this day, I believe the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo," Yang said Wednesday at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.

Yang made the remarks after Internet search giant Google pulled out of an advertising partnership with Yahoo on Wednesday to avoid a "protracted legal battle" with anti-trust regulators.

Yang stressed that he and the rest of Yahoo Inc.'s board " remain open to everything" for a buyout agreement with Microsoft. But Yang said there aren't any talks between the two sides.

Yahoo rejected a 47.5-billion-dollar takeover offer from Microsoft six months ago, a move that irritated Yahoo investors. To pacify the investors, Yahoo had been wooing Google's alliance to boost its sagging profits and stock.

Microsoft said it withdrew its 33-dollar per share bid after Yang demanded 37 dollars, a price that Yahoo's stock hasn't reached since early 2006.

Yahoo's shares closed Wednesday at 13.92 dollars, nearly 60 percent below Microsoft's last offer.

Echoing his previous public comments, Yang said he believes a compromise on the sales price could have been reached if Microsoft hadn't ended the talks so abruptly.

"Did we want to do a deal with Microsoft? Yes," Yang said. "Had we been able to do that, we would have been very happy but it wasn 't meant to be."

Industry analysts believe Microsoft will make another offer to buyout Yahoo within the next few months in a bid to better compete with Google.

Despite its dwindling share value, Yahoo remains the No. 2 search engine and still has a huge audience, making it a choice for Microsoft.

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2008)