Ebay is said to have found a buyer who is willing to take over its enterprise unit for just under a billion dollars, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal cites people familiar with the matter who say eBay is finalizing discussions with a group led by private equity firm Permira to sell ebay Enterprise for $900 million, which is less than half the $2.4 billion eBay purchased it for as GSI Commerce in 2011. If the negotiations go smoothly, the sources say eBay could possibly close a deal of as much as $925 million.
The sources say eBay could finalize the deal as early as Wednesday and would announce it on Thursday during its last quarterly earnings call with shareholders with PayPal still under its helm before PayPal spins off as a separate company of its own on Friday.
Ebay Enterprise is eBay's logistics and warehouse unit for third-party sellers such as Ikea and Toys 'R' Us. However, the unit received a major blow last week when Toys 'R' Us, one of its biggest corporate clients, severed ties with eBay Enterprise and opted to store its goods in its own warehouse in a bid to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Ebay began looking for interested buyers for its enterprise unit in January but is also looking at the possibility of opening it up for an initial public offering as it does not fit in within eBay's PayPal or other marketplace businesses.
One of the potential buyers who was speaking with eBay was Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, which Reuters reported was looking to buy eBay Enterprise for more than $1 billion.
When eBay announced the acquisition of GSI Commerce in 2011, eBay CEO John Donahoe said that a "multichannel environment" was the most reasonable thing to develop as "the boundary between offline and online commerce is coming down at a stunning rate."
In 2014, eBay Enterprise rang in a total of $1.24 billion in revenue, which was 6 percent more than the total revenue it generated the previous year. The figure accounts for 7 percent of the $17.9 billion in sales eBay made in 2014.
Ebay has been tying up some loose ends before the PayPal spinoff scheduled on July 17. Earlier this year, the e-commerce site laid off some 2,400 workers, which represent around 7 percent of its entire workforce. And in June, eBay sold back to Craigslist a 28 percent stake it owned in the classified ads website while settling litigation.
