American multinational e-commerce corporation disclosed on Tuesday that it is selling its classified ads business for $9.2 billion in cash and stock to Adevinta, a fellow online retailer based in Norway.
The deal follows eBay’s significant slimming down of its operations in recent years, which started with the spinoff of PayPal and the sale of its enterprise business in 2015.
Activist investors Elliott Management and Starboard Value have agitated for the sale of both StubHub, a ticketing marketplace, and the classifieds business, which have now both been sold off. Just last year, eBay agreed to sell StubHub to Viagogo for $4.05 billion in cash.
eBay now has its core online marketplace left, which in recent years has waned in clout in e-commerce. Rival, Walmart this year overtook eBay as the second-biggest online seller in the US, according to the researcher eMarketer, following years of lackluster growth at eBay.
Despite all, eBay’s stock value is still over $40 billion and only a few major companies, like Alibaba, could afford it, and Amazon is an unlikely suitor due to antitrust issues.
As part of the Adevinta deal, eBay will receive $2.5 billion in cash and own 44% of the company, though only have 33% of voting rights. The sale is expected to close by the first quarter of next year.
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