Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will only likely buy back the 39 percent stake it holds in Yahoo!, rather than "purchasing Yahoo!," an insider close to the matter told the Global Times Wednesday.

Alibaba Chairman Ma Yun initially aimed to use his abrupt expression of "very interested in buying Yahoo!" to test out both the company's and others' reaction to his intention, the insider said on the condition of anonymity.

Yahoo! owns a stake of about 39 percent in Alibaba, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The insider also said that following his initial expression of interest, Ma has been talking with private equity companies in an effort to finance the purchase of Yahoo!, worth up to $19.9 billion.

Xin Haiguang, an independent IT commentator, said Wednesday he sees a slim chance of Alibaba acquiring Yahoo!, due to the fact that the US government will discourage a non-US entity to buy a large US enterprise that has great influence on the global Internet industry.

Meanwhile, Alibaba's decision to spin off Alipay without the proper permission from Yahoo! has negatively affected the market's trust in Alibaba, and in the face of competition from other web giants' potential plan to acquire Yahoo!, Alibaba would have a slim chance to win a bid, Xin noted.

Also, "Alibaba has been acting in an increasingly unprofessional manner to show its disdain for Yahoo!, which reflects poorly on the e-commerce company," said the industry insider. Alibaba's lack of experience in managing business in the overseas market could lower the confidence of the targeted private equity firms to finance the deal, especially firms in the overseas market.

And though Ma expressed his interest in partially acquiring Yahoo! at the end of September, he has not taken any further steps to push ahead his idea, according to Tao Ran, a PR executive at Alibaba. The executive declined to make any comment on Ma's real intention on the purchase of Yahoo!.

As a US-based Internet giant, Yahoo!'s stock hit a record high of $237.5 in 2000, but continuously declined since then, even dipping below $13.

Considering its poor market performance, Yahoo! is likely to spend less effort on China market, and focus instead on its major markets in the US and Europe. "As such, Yahoo! will more likely spin off its equities in the Chinese company."

According to Yahoo!'s agreement signed with Alibaba and Softbank in 2005, anyone who plans to purchase Yahoo! requires approval from these two major stockholders of Yahoo!. This policy has also offered an unfair advantage to Alibaba in buying back the 39 percent Yahoo! holds in it.