Updated 1:25 p.m. Jan. 6 with no-comment from AutoTrader.com

Never mind a potential IPO — Yahoo could just buy AutoTrader.com. That’s a possible scenario laid out by Bloomberg news service in an article outlining a Yahoo “wish list” for acquisitions.

Bloomberg quoted “three people with knowledge of the matter” as saying the Yahoo board would like to get back into the classified business in a big way with a purchase of AutoTrader.com as part of a complicated series of asset sales, swaps and purchases.

Yahoo has largely moved out of the classifieds business in the United States. It dropped its personals business in 2008 and formed an alliance with Match.com, sold Yahoo HotJobs to Monster.com in August of 2010, and its real estate service is provided by Zillow. Its used-car listings are currently provided by TrueCar.

AutoTrader.com, which is majority owned by Cox Enterprises with a 25 percent stake held by Providence Equity Partners, was projected to hit $1 billion in revenue last year. There’s been speculation about an initial public offering, and CEO Chip Perry told us last March that “no decisions have been made” by the owners. (AutoTrader declined to comment, both to Bloomberg and this morning to us.)

The Weather Channel and WebMD Health Corp. are two of the other companies on the Yahoo wish list, which was developed before the appointment of former EBay executive Scott Thompson as CEO, according to Bloomberg.