• Bloomberg.com, Tuesday, October 7, 2008 11:45 AM

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has made clear his intention to sell off Asian assets such as Alibaba.com Corp. and Gmarket Inc. But thanks to the global financial crisis, it looks like he may have missed his chance to get top dollar. Such holdings have shrunk about $2.2 billion--that's 23%--since Yahoo assessed them in July.

The value of the holdings has been depressed thanks to investor fears that the deepening crisis will hurt the Internet advertising market. And even if a buyer were interested at this point, raising the capital to make the purchase would likely prove difficult now that banks are hoarding cash.

"It clearly looks like a big missed opportunity,'" said Sandeep Aggarwal, a Collins Stewart Plc analyst in San Francisco who rates the shares "hold." "I don't know whether they can get a reasonable price, even if they can get a buyer."

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