The Norwegian owner of the Internet portals “Kleinanzeigen” and “mobile.de” is about to sell billions of euros to two financial investors. Adevinta and its two major shareholders, Ebay and the Norwegian publishing group Schibsted (“VG”, “Aftenposten”), confirmed negotiations with a bidding consortium including the investment companies Blackstone and Permira. The talks are still at an early stage. Schibsted and Ebay supported such a move, but wanted to keep part of their Adevinta share packages.
The shareholders would like a sale: Adevinta rose on the Oslo stock exchange on Friday by around 20 percent to up to 105 Norwegian crowns, which means the company is valued at more than 120 billion crowns (10.5 billion euros). Schibsted shares rose by 13 percent, Ebay rose by 3.5 percent on the Nasdaq technology exchange on Thursday. Blackstone and Permira declined to comment on the takeover plans.
Adevinta became known in Germany two years ago when the Schibsted offshoot prevailed against, among others, the media group Axel Springer in the struggle for Ebay classifieds and the associated car ad portal mobile.de. Blackstone and Permira were already interested in Adevinta back then. The Norwegians paid $2.5 billion in cash, but the lion’s share in their own shares, which made eBay the largest Adevinta shareholder and temporarily valued the company at $13 billion. In Austria, Adevinta owns the online portal “Willhaben”. Under pressure from Austrian antitrust watchdogs, the Americans later had to sell part of their Adevinta package to Permira for 1.9 billion euros. The financial investor holds twelve percent of the shares; according to data from the financial service provider LSEG, Ebay still has 35 percent and Schibsted has 30 percent.