Yahoo Japan has engaged Nomura and a US boutique to advise it on strategic options, as the US internet company that created it presses ahead with an auction of its core business and a review of its stakes in the Japanese venture and Chinese online giant Alibaba.

Yahoo Japan, which was set up two decades ago as a joint venture between Yahoo and Japan's SoftBank, is taking advice from Nomura and the Raine Group, a technology, media and telecoms merchant banking specialist, according to a person familiar with the situation.