Auction giant eBay is selling the Brazilian subsidiary of iBazar SA, which it acquired last February, to Latin American online trading operation MercadoLibre.com, based in Buenos Aires.
Financial specifics were not disclosed, but eBay gets a 19.5 percent stake in MercadoLibre and said it “will share best practices with the company.”
iBazar currently has more than 450,000 registered users in Brazil who list more than 70,000 items for sale each month.
The deal in effect expands eBay’s reach throughout Latin America and enhances MercadoLibre’s presence in Brazil. eBay acquired Paris-based online auction company iBazar S.A. last February in a stock deal valued at about $100 million. iBazar operates in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Brazil.
“MercadoLibre’s management is doing a superb job in building the leading online trading company in the region and it’s a great match for eBay,” said Meg Whitman, president and CEO of eBay.
MercadoLibre.com currently operates in 10 countries– Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, Spain, the United States and Venezuela. The company say sit has raised more than $54 million in two rounds of financing and its main shareholders include JPM Partners, Goldman Sachs, GE Capital, Hicks Muse Tate, Furst and BSCH CRI, and now eBay.
