A consortium consisting of the investment funds Blackstone and Permira, among others, has reached a non-binding proposal to acquire shares in the classifieds company Adevinta.
– Ebay and Schibsted, which have expressed their support for this proposal, will retain part of their existing stake in the company, says Anne-Sophie Jugean from Adevinta’s Investors Department in an announcement to the stock exchange.
Bloomberg Rumors about the takeover first surfaced Thursday evening.
Adevinta was spun off as a separate company from Schibsted in 2019, and in 2020 the company acquired Ebay’s classifieds business in a deal worth NOK 85 billion.
The talks are at an early stage, and no guarantee can be given that a final offer will be made, or what the terms of any offer will be, according to Adevinta.
Adevinta advises shareholders to refrain from taking actions regarding the shares that may harm their interests, and to exercise caution when dealing with the company’s shares.
Schibsted confirms participation in a consortium of financial investors in connection with a potential offer for all shares in the companies.
– Current discussions are consistent with alternative possibilities for Schibsted’s ownership in Adevinta that were previously floated to the financial markets, Schibsted wrote in an announcement to the stock exchange, adding that no guarantee was given of the final offer, or what the terms of such an offer would be.
Adevinta has a number of digital marketplaces across Europe within the real estate, used car and employment markets, among others, and today has a market capitalization of exactly NOK 100 billion. But the market value has fallen by more than 50 percent since the peak in the summer of 2021 after several years of poor results.
After the agreement with Ebay in 2020, the American company ended up owning about 44 percent of Adevinta shares. But about a year later, in July 2021, Ebay sold a significant stake in its Adevinta stock to Permira. Permira therefore currently owns about 11 percent of Adevinta shares, making it the third largest holder.
– EBay is aware of the statement issued by Adevinta regarding the receipt of a non-binding indicative offer for all Adevinta shares and has expressed its support for this proposal. Under this proposal, eBay would retain a portion of its existing stake in the company. eBay has no further comments to add, Ebay wrote in a comment.
Ebay was up 3.5% at most on the Nasdaq just before closing time, but ended the day up 0.5%. The stock price rose 0.8 percent in after-market trading. The stock price rose 4.2 percent in 2023 – compared to 27.3 percent for the Nasdaq.
According to Bloomberg, neither Blackstone nor Permira representatives will comment on this information.(conditions)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using links that lead directly to our pages. No copying or other use of all or part of the Content may be permitted except with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms see here.
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