UPDATE 1-SK Telecom, Shinsegae Group among bidders of the Korean business eBay – sources

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Author: Joyce Lee

SEOUL, March 16 (Reuters) – South Korea’s SK Telecom, retailer Shinsegae Group and private equity firm MBK Partners were among those making non-binding, preliminary offers to sell South Korea’s business to eBay Inc, the telecommunications company and two sources with knowledge of the matter on Tuesday.

According to Euromonitor, eBay Korea operates open market e-commerce platforms Gmarket, Auction and G9 and was the third largest e-commerce company in South Korea in 2020 with 12.8% market share.

The sources declined to say they were not authorized to speak to the media. MBK Partners, Shinsegae Group and eBay Korea declined to comment.

Seoul-based analysts say eBay hopes to raise as much as 5 trillion won (4.42 billion pounds) in sales.

However, they stated that the actual sales price may be lower due to recent declines in market share compared to competitors such as Korean e-commerce company No. 1 Coupang, and the disadvantages of the traditional form of e-commerce “open market” units that simply connect sellers with buyers.

eBay Korea’s market share has been taken over in recent years by Coupang, which directly manages inventory, excelled in fast delivery and raised about $4.6 billion in a blockbuster auction in New York earlier this month, and Naver Corp, which operates the dominant in South Korea, a search portal website.

eBay Korea’s 2020 revenue was estimated at about 1.3 trillion won, up 5.3% in transactions from the previous year, compared with 19% growth in the South Korean e-commerce market, said an analyst at KTB Investment & Securities Kim Jin-woo. (Reporting by Joyce Lee, editing by Louise Heavens)