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Adevinta has purchased eBay‘s classified ads department. The online daughter of Norwegian media group Schibsted now gets a strong foothold in the Benelux, through 2dehands.be and marktplaats.nl.
Minority share
The Norwegians have offered 9.2 billion dollars (just shy of 8 billion euros) for its new prey in a mixture of cash and shares, meaning eBay will retail a minority share in its former ads branch, The Wall Street Journal reports. The accepted offer was the best of many, because – amongst others – TPG, Blackstone Group, Naspers, German publisher Axel Springer and Dutch investment fund Prosus had reportedly shown an interest.
The classified ads branch had a Q1 turnover of 248 million dollars (210 million euros) and was believed to be worth ‘just’ 8 billion dollars (7 billion euros). Activist shareholders had been putting pressure on eBay to sell some of its assets and focus on its core business – resulting in the sale of ticket resale company StubHub to Viagogo last year.
