"SHANGHAI - Web media company Yahoo! is in advanced talks to purchase an approximately 35% stake in China's biggest homegrown e-commerce company for almost $1 billion, in what would be the biggest investment by a foreign company in China's Internet industry to date, sources close to the negotiations said.

Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) would be gaining one of China's most coveted Internet partners. Alibaba.com is led by Jack Ma, a onetime English teacher whose unpretentious style and quick wit have made him one of China's most revered entrepreneurs. Alibaba operates two online business sites--Taobao.com, an online auction site, and Alibaba.com, an online trading site. Both were ranked among the world's top 40 Web sites on Sunday by Alexa, the Internet monitoring service.

The talks are nearing completion amid a stunning runup in the valuations of China's Internet companies by Western investors angling to profit from the country's economic and Internet boom."