Yahoo, Alibaba talks called off: report

Yahoo Inc and its Asian partners, China's Alibaba and Japan's Softbank Corp, have called off talks over a sale of the U.S. company's Asian assets, tech blog AllThingsDigital cited sources as saying on Tuesday.

A proposed deal -- referred to as a cash-rich split-off -- that would have seen the exchange of Yahoo's slices of Alibaba and Yahoo Japan back to those companies in return for unspecified assets now appeared "dead," the influential blog cited unidentified sources as saying.

Discussions had "completely halted" after negotiators from Yahoo -- whose Chairman Roy Bostock is due to step down and whose Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson is barely a month into the job -- changed tack on what they wanted from the deal, AllThingsDigital cited one source as saying, without elaborating.

Shares in Yahoo were down 5.3 percent at $15.27 in afternoon trade. Yahoo did not immediately return calls seeking comment.