SHARKS CIRCLE YAHOO!

Yahoo's dynamic duo, Jerry Yang and David Filo still don't want to sell the struggling Internet company, but its stock price is so low that the duo may not be able to fend off a takeover offer without compromising their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

Yahoo! shares dropped to a low of $18.72 during yesterday's trading session before rebounding along with the broader market rally to close the day at $20.01.

That's a roughly 35 percent decline from the company's 52-week high of $34.08 per share in October and comes despite news of a cost-cutting plan that includes the elimination of about 700 jobs designed in part to prop up its stock price.

Part of the reason for the negative reaction is because Wall Street is wondering when the restructuring and reorganizing at Yahoo! is going to stop and the turnaround is going to begin.

"Yahoo has an execution problem, not a structural problem, and whenever you have an execution problem there are a lot of smart people with a lot of money that think they can do better," said UBS analyst Ben Schachter. "Each day Yahoo's stock gets cheaper, it raises the interest among these people. Yang and Filo don't want to sell until they've had a real chance to turn the business around. Where the stock is now, however, they might not have that option."

While no formal discussions are currently taking place, sources close to Yahoo! said that private-equity firms have been aggressively reaching out since its stock started trading below $24. These sources said Yahoo! has little interest in selling to private equity.

They added, however, that there is nervousness inside Yahoo! that one of the strategic buyers that has kicked the tires on the company in the past - a list that includes AOL, AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Microsoft, Viacom and News Corp. (which owns The Post) - might make a move given its depressed stock price.

"There are a lot of interested buyers standing around looking at Yahoo!," said one source close to the company. "If one of them gets the sense that another is ready to jump, they might move faster [to beat them to it].

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