Not the day job

25 Nov 2019 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

The $29 bln firm is a shadow of Amazon in e-commerce, but selling StubHub for $4 bln shows prowess at incubating a business acquired for less than a tenth of that. Off-loading its classified operations could be similarly successful. And eBay’s biggest gains have come from PayPal.

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EBay said on Nov. 25 it had agreed to sell its ticketing unit, StubHub, to ticket reseller Viagogo for just over $4 billion in cash. StubHub was founded by Eric Baker, who left the company before it was sold to eBay for $310 million in 2007. Baker went on to found Viagogo.

Online commerce firm eBay has been under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management. In a letter sent to eBay’s board of directors in January, Elliott called for the company to sell or spin off StubHub and eBay’s classified businesses. Elliott estimated StubHub could be worth $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion and classifieds between $8 billion and $12 billion.

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