Buying Yahoo Without Coming Off Together

The company’s core business isn’t thriving, but suitors are reportedly offering as much as $8 billion.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The bids to buy Yahoo YHOO 0.67 % ’s operating business, rumored
to be between $4 billion and $8 billion, are in—and my guess is that they are all high. Think back to 2008, when Yahoo turned down a $44.6 billion hostile bid by Microsoft, MSFT 1.77 % which wanted control of a very robust online business combining search, finance and sports