EBay buys Korean rival's stake for €309 million

EBay Inc. has agreed to buy a controlling stake in South Korean online retailer Gmarket Inc. for €309 million, at a 32.5 per cent premium, according to news service eDaily reported.

The long-discussed deal would help US online auctioneer eBay emerge as a dominant player in South Korea's customer-to-customer online market by taking control of its key competitor.

EBay would buy a 34.2 per cent stake in Gmarket from its current top shareholder Interpark and the Korean firm's chairman, at €17.9 a share, eDaily reported, citing unidentified sources.

Nasdaq-listed Gmarket runs customer-to-customer marketplaces and has more than 10 million registered users in South Korea. It competes with eBay's South Korean unit, Internet Auction Co.

EBay has won conditional approval from South Korea's antitrust watchdog on the Gmarket deal. When combined, Gmarket and Internet Auction would have 87 per cent of the country's online customer-to-customer market.