Ebay Buys Gmarket

SEOUL -- EBay Inc. cleared its acquisition of South Korean rival Gmarket Inc. with antitrust authorities by promising to help small- and mid-size companies sell products online, executives said Thursday as the deal was formally announced.

EBay will pay up to $1.2 billion for Gmarket, depending on how many Gmarket shareholders agree to sell their shares. The deal combines South Korea's two largest e-commerce web sites by subscribers and revenue.

Because of antitrust concerns, the firms took the unusual step of seeking approval from the Korea Fair Trade Commission shortly after they began talks last August. The agency approved the combination in September.

At the announcement, eBay's Asia chief Jay Lee said the company promised the government agency that it would take several measures to boost the access of small- and mid-sized firms to its websites, including those in 38 other countries. "South Korean small and medium-sized companies are competitive, but it's hard for them to export their products because of the language barrier or lack of other support," Mr. Lee said.

Mr. Lee said eBay would continue to run the two e-commerce sites, Gmarket and Internet Auction Co., separately.

The acquisition turned on an agreement eBay reached earlier this week with Gmarket's controlling shareholders, Interpark Corp. and its chairman Lee Ki-hyong, who accepted a per-share price of $24, about a 50% premium over the trading range of Gmarket shares last month.

In announcing the final terms, eBay said it would attempt to buy all 50.3 million shares of Gmarket, which is based in Seoul but traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market in the U.S. At the time of the announcement, executives said they'd secured deals to buy 67% of the outstanding shares, including the 34% controlled by Interpark and Mr. Lee and 10% owned by Yahoo Inc. of the U.S.

Shares in Gmarket closed at $19.95, up 3%, in Nasdaq trading on Wednesday.

If all the shares are tendered, the $1.2 billion deal would mark the eighth-largest acquisition of a Korean company by a foreign one, according to Thomson Reuters, just beating the $1.17 billion Lone Star Funds of Texas spent to acquire Korea Exchange Bank in 2003.
—SungHa Park and Geoffrey Fowler contributed to this article.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123987481714424705.html
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I am actually happy about this, I never bought something from Gmarket since it seems so confusing and not very user friendly.I hope this will change when Ebay takes the control.

have to wake up in 6hrs >__<