eBay Inc. Buys Leading Payments and Classifieds Businesses, Streamlines Existing Organization To Improve Growth
biz.yahoo.com
Monday October 6, 7:45 am ET
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) today announced two acquisitions that significantly extend the company’s leadership position in online payments and classifieds. In payments, the company is acquiring the U.S.-based online payments business Bill Me Later® for approximately $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in outstanding options. In classifieds, the company has acquired Denmark’s leading online classifieds site dba.dk and vehicles site bilbasen.dk for approximately $390 million in cash.
The company also announced plans to reduce its global workforce by approximately 10 percent, affecting about 1,000 employees in addition to several hundred temporary workers and the reduction of open positions. The global reduction is intended to simplify and streamline eBay’s organization, improve the company’s cost structure and strengthen the overall competitiveness of the company’s existing businesses. The reduction is expected to result in pretax restructuring charges of approximately $70 million to $80 million, with the charges predominantly recorded in the fourth quarter of 2008.
“We are making aggressive moves to strengthen our leadership positions in e-commerce and payments to competitively position our company for long-term growth,” said John Donahoe, eBay Inc.’s president and chief executive officer. “Bill Me Later is a perfect complement to our portfolio, a company that belongs with PayPal. Together, PayPal and Bill Me Later will make online payments safer, easier and more convenient than ever.”
“Our classifieds acquisition gives us another market leadership position in Europe for this rapidly growing part of our portfolio,” Donahoe said. “We are the global leader in classifieds with top positions in Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, and sites in more than 1,000 cities across 20 countries. The acquisition of dba.dk and bilbasen.dk gives us technology and expertise we can leverage across our classifieds portfolio to create better customer experiences.” |
