Updated: eBay has officially issues the release: it has bought StubHub for $310 million. The pending acquisition is expected to close before the end of March. Official release here.
Original post: Not necessarily digital media, but shows how eBay is trying to get back on track on its acquisition strategy, after its huge Skype acquisition didn’t turn out as well as expected: WSJ reports that it is near a deal to purchase ticket-reselling site StubHub for potentially more than $300 million.
StubHub is the largest tickets-only reseller of concert, sports, and event tickets, last year selling more than $400 million worth of inventory, and had an EBITDA of about $10 million, the story says. You can calculate the multiple…
Ebay competes directly with StubHub with its own tickets marketplace.
MarketWatch: StubHub had been shopped around since October 2005, and eBay was considered by insiders as the leading candidate to buy the company. In a curious twist, eBay tried to buy StubHub for $20 million in 2002, when the company was two-years-old. But talks fell apart.