eBay is selling ticket resale marketplace StubHub to Viagogo for $4.05 billion in cash, according to a press release issued by the California company Monday morning. The sale is expected to close by the first quarter of 2020, assuming it clears regulatory hurdles and other closing conditions.
Eric Baker, Viagogo’s founder and CEO, also co-founded StubHub while in graduate school. “It has long been my wish to unite the two companies,” says Baker, who sold his stake in the company prior to eBay’s purchase of the marketplace for $310 million in 2007. “I am so proud of how StubHub has grown over the years and excited about the possibilities for our shared future. Buyers will have a wider choice of tickets, and sellers will have a wider network of buyers. Bringing these two companies together creates a win-win for fans – more choice and better pricing.”
The transaction will close nearly a year of speculation regarding the future of the largest ticket resale marketplace in the United States. Activist investors began pushing for eBay to spin off StubHub and other divisions in order to focus on its core marketplace business in January. eBay stock (NASDAQ: EBAY) jumped by close to 5% in pre-session trading Monday with the news, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
“We believe this transaction is a great outcome and maximizes long-term value for eBay shareholders,” said Scott Schenkel, interim chief executive officer of eBay Inc. “Over the past several months, eBay’s leadership team and Board of Directors have been engaged in a thorough review of our current strategies and portfolio, and we concluded that this was the best path forward for both eBay and StubHub. We firmly believe in the StubHub business and we are excited about its future growth potential with viagogo as its owner.”
While it comes as no surprise that StubHub has been sold, Viagogo had not been mentioned as one of the likely suitors for the business in previous reporting. Originally, the interested parties were reported as Vivid Seats, LLC as well as Silver Lake Partners and KKR & Co. The price tag was also higher than expected, with speculation ranging as high as $3 billion – far less than the reported actual purchase price.
“Bringing StubHub and viagogo together will allow us to drive further expansion and innovation, and create a more competitive offering for live event fans globally,” said Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, president of StubHub. “This provides a great opportunity to expand our business, pursue new partnerships and execute our strategy. We expect a seamless transition for all our employees, partners and customers, and we are excited for what the future holds.”
Last Updated on November 25, 2019
8 Comments
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Has the FTC already answered 🙂
I think this is a good outcome for brokers and fans. Competition is good
You have no idea what a terrible company Viagogo is they are the worst there is in terms of customer service and seller service check out their reputation on trust pilot
Easy Folks. A criminal formerly private equity manager understands only one language. Is a blow off at the top with a outside–inside , bearish–engulfing–pattern.
Hopefully this brings Vivid Seats back down to earth. Some healthy competition would be good for the industry. Tired of being bullied by exchanges who act like we do not add value to them.
Viagogo will make Vivid seats look like saints
LB is correct. Exchanges dont need you or me. TM, artists and teams all list directly anyway.
The investors at Pugnacious Endeavors Inc. for this takeover should know that Eric Baker and his Viagogo entourage are criminals. In rounds of financing or acquiring negotiations (we do not know why) … Q4/14 to Q2/15 they cooked the books with hundreds of events, with thousands of short sales. Sports, music, show events which all in the next quarter (2-3 months later) were canceled without objection. An example … over 5000 Tickets in Q1/15 for the UEFA champions league final 2015 at berlin sells to endclients, sporttour operators and a handful of european brokers, in denominations of 4 per sale. In all categories … all at market prices which were 50% below the 10-year average of the usual market price. For comparison, for you US brokers, so you can classify that with the NFL Superbowl, so you understand what these criminals did. 300er level seats, denomination to max. 4 side by side the ticket at 800USD each, the whole on sale in november / december before the event in february … and so on. These are criminals. Cooking the books and leave at the end of the rat tail, problems in the market. In front of a civil court in switzerland, Viagogo told the court, they do not know who the seller was. Criminals and nothing else … sell 5,000 tickets empty to the market and cringe at the end, like an old Italian street punter were is missing two tickets, because he does not want to buy out with a loss.