According to the transaction, eBay will receive 2.5 billion US dollars in cash and 540 million shares of Norwegian Adventa company.
Editor’s note: This article is from Tencent Technology, reviewed by Cheng Xi.
According to the transaction agreement, eBay acquired 44% of the ownership and 33.3% of the voting rights of the new company after merging classified advertising assets, and became the largest shareholder of Adventa. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.
According to the latest news from foreign media, on July 20, the US e-commerce giant eBay announced that it agreed to sell its online classified advertising business to Norway’s Adevinta company for US$9.2 billion, which also became One of the largest asset sale transactions in the Internet industry this year.
According to foreign media reports, the two companies stated in a statement on Tuesday that eBay will receive 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in cash and 540 million shares of Norwegian Adevanta under the transaction. Following the news of the acquisition transaction, Adventa’s share price rose 39%.
According to people familiar with the matter, in the asset bidding process, Adventa defeated Prosus NV, a subsidiary of Naspers, and another private equity investment company acquisition consortium. The members of the consortium included Blackstone Group (Blackstone). Group Inc.), Permira (Permira) and Herman £¦ Friedman (Hellman £¦ Friedman).
People familiar with the matter said that Oslo-based Adevinta received unexpected help in the bid, mainly because eBay wanted to maintain a larger stake in the business. Adventa operates multiple online classified advertising markets in Europe and Latin America.
This is the largest transaction for a Norwegian company in more than a decade, and it will greatly expand the scale of Adventa. Adventa is a company that was spun off from Scandinavian media group Schibsted ASA last year.
The CEO Rolv Erik Ryssdal, who has been expanding the company’s size, said in an interview last week that, driven by the new crown epidemic lockdown order, it has something to do with classified ads. Demand in the online shopping industryincrease.
According to the transaction agreement, eBay acquired 44% of the ownership and 33.3% of the voting rights of the new company after merging classified advertising assets, and became the largest shareholder of Adventa. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021.
According to last year’s data, the combined sales of the new company were US$1.8 billion and net profit was US$600 million. In the transaction, Goldman Sachs and LionTree advisory company provided advice to eBay. Citigroup served as Adventa’s financial advisor.
eBay has been under pressure from activist investors Starboard Value Fund and Elliott Management Company to sell assets and focus on its core business-the eBay platform of online stores. In 2019, the company agreed to add two new directors from Starboard Fund and Elliott Company, which increased the pressure for management to divest non-core assets. In the same year, Devin Weining, the CEO who refused to transfer non-core assets, resigned and left eBay.
Due to the new crown epidemic that promotes online shopping growth, eBay has achieved strong performance growth in the latest quarter, but the classified advertising business has been affected, mainly because the epidemic lockdown order has caused thousands of car dealers to close (they are Major clients of classified ads).
eBay’s classified advertising business includes independent online markets such as Kijiji used in Canada and Italy and Gumtree popular in the UK, Australia and South Africa. It also owns the Danish online car market Bilbasen and the British car search site Motors.co.uk.
In the future, they will be added to Adventa’s product portfolio. Adventa’s Internet product array includes shopping app Shpock, vacation booking website Locasun and job search platform InfoJobs.
eBay said in February this year that it is actively negotiating with multiple parties regarding its classified advertising business. In November last year, the San Jose, California-based company sold concert and sports ticket sales site StubHub to Switzerland-based competitor Viagogo for $4 billion. A few years ago, eBay also spun off its mobile payment business PayPal. PayPal has now become a leading company in the global payment industry.