- eBay Global
One way to measure a company is by its acquisitions.
eBay has not been overly successful in the eyes of investors with a majority of its acquisitions. To be sure, there are some notable flops in the list below.
However the flops fly, there are also some superstar Investments in this list.
I thought we would present a list of all of the eBay purchases over the years in one place, (at least all we could find) just to give everyone a better idea of how big and what kind of global reach eBay really has.
(Not all aquisition prices found) - Believed to be accurate but not guaranteed
1998-07-16 Up4Sale.com Online auction United States]
1999-04-27 Butterfield & Butterfield Auction house United States $260,000,000
1999-05-18 Billpoint E-commerce payment systems United States
1999-06-22 Alando Auction house Germany $43,000,000
2000-06-13 Half.com Online marketplace United States $318,000,000
2000-12-12 Precision Buying Service E-commerce payment systems United States
2001-01-08 Internet Auction Co. Online auction South Korea $120,000,000
2001-03-05 iBazar Online auction France $66,000,000
2001-10-01 MercadoLibre.com Online auction Argentina
2002-07-08 PayPal E-commerce payment systems United States $1,500,000,000
2003-01-31 CARad.com Online auction United States
2003-07-11 EachNet Electronic commerce China $150,000,000
2004-06-22 Baazee.com Online auction India $50,000,000
2004-08-14 Craigslist Classified advertising United States $250,000,000 (25% Stake)
2004-11-10 Marktplaats.nl Online auctions Netherlands $290,000,000]
2004-12-16 Rent.com Classified advertising United States $415,000,000
2005-05-18 Loquo Classified advertising Spain
2005-05-19 Gumtree Classified advertising United Kingdom
2005-06-02 Shopping.com Online shopping United States $620,000,000
2005-06-30 OpusForum.org Classified advertising Germany
2005-09-13 Skype Voice over Internet Protocol United States $2,600,000,000
2006-03-09 Meetup.com Social network service United States $10,000,000
2006-04-24 Tradera Online auction Sweden $48,000,000
2007-01-10 StubHub Electronic commerce United States $310,000,000
2007-05-03 GittiGidiyor Electronic commerce Turkey
2007-05-30 StumbleUpon Canada $75,000,000
Various Sources - Including Wikipedia,.com
That’s quite a list. The most impressive to me is Butterfield and Butterfield. But what will they do with it?
I think the smartest move eBay ever made was the PayPal buy. StumbleUpon was a fun one, I just hope they keep their hands off it to allow the site to remain pure.
I think the most important thing in the ether right now that eBay should be paying attention to is the GoAntiques acquisition by Worthpoint.
Hey Wally,
Thanks for the comment…
Remember, I have no list of acquisitions subsequently sold off… and have no idea if Butterfield and Butterfield is still owned by eBay.
Agree completely PayPal is the star of the show, with StubHub coming in second in my book…
Craigslist was a total bust as I have written about previously here: http://snurl.com/3jao8
Rent.com, Meetup.com, Shopping.com, Carad, MercadoLibre, Half.com and Stumbleupon are all thumbs up buys just based on visibility and usefulness.
Some deride Skype, but that is based upon over paying for the product, not the usefulness of the service. I use Skype every day and love it. I wish eBay would have integrated it into the main platform better, sooner, more completely, but I still use Skype regardless…
Good Product with a high pricetag, how many of us have experienced the same kind of purchases?