eBay To Sell StubHub For $4.05 Billion To Viagogo

StubHub will shortly have a new owner if all goes as per the plan. Viagogo, a separate ticket reseller, has decided to purchase it for $4.05 Billion from eBay. The sale might lock by the end of March 2020, pending customary closing conditions and regulators’ approval.

Eric Baker (founder and CEO at Viagogo) also co-established StubHub, which eBay purchased for $310 Million in 2007 (Baker left the firm before this deal). He claimed that he had long expected to bring Viagogo and StubHub together.

The decision means two key ticket resellers are collaborating, and while you may hope that might result in fewer alternatives for methods to purchase tickets you are desperately looking for, Baker stated otherwise. “Users will have a broader option of tickets, and merchants will have a broader network of users,” he claimed to the media in an interview. “Bringing these two firms together makes a win-win for users—better pricing and more options.”

“We think that this payment is a great conclusion and increases long-term value for shareholders in eBay,” Scott Schenkelsaid, interim CEO at eBay, claimed to the media. “Over the last few months, the Board of Directors and leadership team at eBay have been involved in a thorough probe of our present portfolio and strategies, and we concluded that this was the best way forward for both StubHub and eBay.”

Both Viagogo and StubHub have been below regulatory probe in late times. The competition watchdog officials of the UK supposedly raided both firm’s offices in 2017 as fraction of a probe into “suspected violations of consumer law.” Shortly after, the Competition and Markets Authority asked for more intelligibility from resellers to their users after it “collected proof which it believes to disclose violation of the law.” In September, the CMA terminated plans for lawful action in opposition to Viagogo.