Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. founder Jack Ma on Thursday said the company is open to selling a stake in the e-commerce provider to sovereign wealth funds in order to finance a buyback of its shares from Yahoo Inc., Bloomberg reported.

"You need to have some guy with deep pockets," Ma told Bloomberg in an interview.

"I want to make sure it has healthy corporate governance. I don't want another big guy coming here. Five years later, 10 years later, the next generation of leadership cannot stand the pressure from shareholders," Ma said.

Alibaba, Ma said, is open to investments from firms such as China Investment Corp. and Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., which already is an investor in Alibaba.

Bloomberg couldn’t get confirmation from either mentioned party.

Alibaba had been trying to buy back the stake from Yahoo for more than a year and stepped up efforts in September because of improving prospects for growth and expansion beyond China. Yahoo acquired about 40 percent of Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba in 2005 in exchange for $1 billion and ownership of Yahoo’s Chinese operations.

The Wall Street Journal reported in late May that the Chinese company was in talks with Singaporestate investment company Temasek to help it finance a $7.1 billion purchase of its shares from Yahoo Inc.

Temasek may provide about $500 million if the negotiations are successful, the report said, citing people familiar with the situation.