Reuters is reporting that China’s leading e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, is looking for support to buy back the 40% stake in the company currently held by Yahoo! Inc.

Alibaba is one of the worlds largest e-commerce groups. Founded in Hangzhou, China by Jack Ma in 1999, it completed its US$1.7 billion initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2007, the biggest Internet IPO at the time since Google’s 2004 offering on the NASDAQ.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group has reportedly been in discussions with private equity groups in an attempt to build a special-purpose acquisition fund to buy back Yahoo!’s share in the company.

“Jack Ma is keen to get private equity funds involved in the deal, mainly for financing,” said Reuters unidentified industry source.

Yahoo! Inc. purchased their stake in Alibaba in 2005 for an estimated $1billion. Recent assessments suggest that that stake is now worth about $4billion.

Read more coverage of Alibaba Group on The Next Web here and here.