eBay has announced it will sell an 80% stake in its South Korean operations to E-Mart for $3 billion in cash. That pegs the value of the operations at roughly $3.75 billion, and eBay’s remaining stake at $750 million.
After being a pioneer in the ecommerce space with a valuation higher than that of Amazon, eBay has struggled as other players in the space like Chewy, Amazon, and Shopify seemed to find better operating models, leaving it in the dust.
Now, as growth has slowed, eBay seems to be trying to maximize its operational efficiency by selling off parts of its business to other operators. For example, it announced the sale of its classified ads business to Adevinta for over $9 billion almost a year ago in July. That deal also included a cash component, allowing eBay to strengthen its balance sheet and continue returning capital to shareholders.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley served as financial advisors to eBay on the transaction.