In May it set up a unit to run its nascent e-commerce operations, preparing to take on established players like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and 360buy.com.

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We will be looking for answers with a team of worldly venture investors led by Hermann Hauser of Amadeus Capital Partners, game changers like Savio Kwan of Alibaba, innovative entrepreneurs such as Alexander Trewby of Hong Kong-based mobile tech service Enterproid and technologists who are speaking at Silicon Dragon London.

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Baidu is one of the largest Chinese Internet giants along with companies like Sina, Tencent and Alibaba, and it is also the biggest Chinese search engine.

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The plan for the Asian assets would involve Alibaba creating a subsidiary into which it would put several billion dollars of cash, plus an operating asset that Yahoo wants to buy using additional cash from Alibaba, almost like giving Yahoo a prepaid card for an asset of its choice, the people said.

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However, it could try and team up with friendly investors in it like Microsoft and DST (who is a small investor in Alibaba Group) and possibly someone friendly in the Valley like Silver Lake.

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Credit Suisse also expects more competition from domestic rivals like Tencent, Sohu, Taobao and Alibaba.

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Ma says he would like to get back some of the shares of Alibaba Group from Yahoo and Softbank.

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People like Li YanHong and Robin Li, founders of Baidu.com, or famed entrepreneur Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba group, which owns the most popular e-commerce sites, or Pan Shiyi and wife Zhang Xin, the Donald Trumps of China.

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