Yahoo is calling on Microsoft to bump up its buyout bid, but the trouble is a number of the Internet giant's largest investors own shares in both stocks.

And, in a number of cases, Microsoft accounts for a larger slice between the two, which could dampen Yahoo's efforts to generate strong investor momentum in calling for a substantially higher price, according to a report released Friday by RiskMetrics Group. In effect, it's like asking these large investors to bid against themselves.

"This is the pressure that Yahoo is under," said Chris Young, RiskMetrics director of M&A research. "If the Yahoo investors owned fewer Microsoft shares than Yahoo, then the pressure would be different."

For example, Yahoo's largest investor, Capital Group's Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors, managed 523.6 million shares of Microsoft, compared with 154.8 million shares of Yahoo, as of December 31.

And T. Rowe Price, which ranks among Yahoo's top-10 investors, owned 136.5 million shares of Microsoft compared with 22.8 million shares of Yahoo, during the same time period.

According to RiskMetrics, 90 percent of all Yahoo institutional investors also own shares in Microsoft. And of this group, 15 of the top 20 Yahoo institutional investors own more Microsoft than Yahoo.

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