Yahoo has flogged its shopping service, Kelkoo, to a British investment firm.

Founder and former chief executive Pierre Chappaz posted on his blog at wikio.fr, a memo to Kelkoo employees from a Yahoo Europe executive, Glen Drury, announcing the sale of Kelkoo to British private equity firm Jamplant. Drury said that Yahoo thinks that Kelkoo will do better as a standalone company if it has Jamplant backing.

Chappaz, who founded Kelkoo in 1999 said Kelkoo was sold for under 100 million euros, which was a lot less than the 475 million euros paid by Yahoo for the firm in 2004. Chappaz, who has long since left Yahoo said, "the difference is the price of management incompetence that led Yahoo's share price under $9."

It was a clear dig at the fact that Jerry Yang, the Yahoo co-founder, quit this week announcing that he would be stepping down after less than 18 months in the job. Yang rejected a $47 billion  takeover offer from software giant Microsoft, claiming it undervalued the company.  In fact, when Microsoft pulled out of the deal shares fell faster than a suicidal New York elephant jumping off the Empire State building.

More here.