Ebay said to sell local unit to Tom.com

Winny Wang
2006-11-22
INTERNET auctioneer eBay Inc may sell its Chinese eBay Eachnet unit to Tom Group in exchange for shares of the media group, Youth Daily reported today.

Tom.com, a leading wireless Internet company in China, is controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing

eBay is likely to pay Tom Group another US$200 million or US$300 million for a stake in the Hong Kong-listed company, the report said, citing an unnamed source. PayPal, eBay's Internet payment service system, will also be involved in the deal.

Wang Leilei, CEO of Tom Online, will be the CEO of the company after the buyout, the report said.

Tom Online's profit in the third quarter of this year reached US$5.28 million, dropping 55.1 percent from a quarter earlier, and 59 percent down from a year earlier.

The group needs to expand its business scope to stimulate profit, so the buyout is expected to enlarge its market share on the Chinese mainland, the report said.

eBay bought one-third of Eachnet's stake for US$30 million in 2002. It spent another US$150 million on the remaining shares of Eachnet in 2003.

However, shortly after that, eBay Eachnet's share in the consumer-to-consumer market went down because of competition from taobao.com.

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Well it is looking more and more like ebaY will be out of China. If he (or she) who wins China wins the world, what happens to he who loses it?



-- Edited by anonymous at 05:19, 2006-11-22