According to the Wall Street Journal, Yelp is looking into selling itself.
And in morning trade on Friday, shares of the company were up 6% after a 23% rally on Thursday.
"While we cannot at this time confirm the veracity of this report, this potential event does underscore what investors have been thinking on YELP shares since day one," Credit Suisse's Stephen Ju writes.
With at least one analyst seeing a 50% chance that Yelp gets bought, it's worth thinking about this further.
But who'd benefit most from from buying this huge online review clearinghouse?
Ju identified six potential buyers. From his note to clients:
Google - "Yelp's review data is a natural fit for its existing Maps product as well as its local advertising effort; while not necessarily an impediment, the one hurdle to consummating the deal may be that incoming CFO Ruth Porat does not start on the job until 26 May."
Apple - "Data supplement to its iMaps product that it can leverage to catch up to Google Maps in terms of consumer experience."
Amazon - "Logical fit with Amazon Local business and provides richer content for better demand generation for its partners."
Yahoo - "Less of a strategic fit versus GOOGL or AAPL but will get company greater presence in local advertising market."
Priceline - "Less important to its current hotels franchise but good strategic fit with its restaurants/OpenTable business and allows it to move up the consumer purchasing funnel as it already owns the transaction."
Tripadvisor - "Natural fit given its already-robust presence in reviews/data; majority of its acquisitions to date has been to add to supply to cater to its demand, but that said it can be a good strategic fit with La Fourchette."
Jefferies' Brian Pitz also thinks Google, Priceline, and Yahoo! could be buyers. But his list included two companies Ju left out.
Facebook - "[Small to medium-sized businesses] already use Facebook as a place to manage a free web / mobile presence, and 1MM SMBs have already done small ad buys. Facebook clearly has ambitions to grow its local advertising business. On the last earnings call, Zuckerberg noted its burgeoning search business (1B+ mobile searches per day) can get "recommendations of products and travel and restaurants." Yelp would surely improve these results. With $12.4B cash and a CEO with majority voting control, FB could easily do the deal if interested."
GrubHub - "GrubHub has a highly engaged (and very hungry) audience that is looking to purchase food online for delivery. GrubHub could bundle sales of online commerce as well as advertising services to its restaurant clients. However, given GrubHub's comparable size and much smaller balance sheet, stock would have to be issued in order to finance a deal."
Yelp shares surged 23% on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal's report.
