Good News Ebay Makes Acquisitions and Lays Off Employees

By Craig Agranoff    October 6th, 2008

How nice of Ebay.  The company has announced it plans to lay off approximately 1000 employees, which equates to 10% of its workforce.  Ebay will also remove hundreds of temp positions from the payroll as well.

This comes on the heel of announcing that they have acquired DBA and bilbasen out of Denmark for approximately $380 million and BillMeLater, an amazon funded company for $820 million.  The deals were made in cash and over $100 million in outstanding options.  The layoffs will give Ebay a restructuring charge of around $75 million dollars, so I can see why they felt the need to spend over a billion to buy these other two companies.

Ebay’s president and CEO John Donahoe, says the purchase of billmelater is complementary to PayPal, he states “Together, PayPal and Bill Me Later will make online payments safer, easier and more convenient than ever.”  The acquisition of DBA, Denmark’s leading online classifieds site is obviously to take over a regional big boy.

This year, Ebay’s stock is down almost 50 percent in value.  Obviously the investors haven’t been too keen on previous acquisitions.  Buying these new companies might give Ebay a quick lift in the short term, but with all the red tape they have, it will lead to trouble in the future.  Good luck with these new purchases Ebay, you will need all the luck you can get.

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  • Wow! Hope this will find Ebay all better in the future. :) . I always buy Ugg Shoes on Ebay.
  • By this time, USA is in great recession. Poverty, unemployment, banks are closing (government/private) and shortage of federal budget is in top of issue. Many businessmen pullout their investments and stock markets are on its downfall. It is so hard to survive in this time of economic recession. But don’t be pessimistic, try to cheer up and as early as now try to think of survival tips. Survival tips are something that always comes in handy, especially for emergency situations. Many people are also looking into economic survival tips, as the global economy is suffering worse more than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The tsunami of crashing finances was fought, or at least an attempt, with cash advance stimulus packages from central governments to troubled banks. In times of any adversity, whether financial or environmental, the best thing you can possibly do is not to panic. Panic means hesitation and illogicality, and in a disaster situation, that means death. Keep moving, and get away from the danger as soon as possible. Those are the best survival tips for emergencies, and also try to ask for God’s grace, this is for me my best survival tip for you.
  • seopt
  • I hate to see eBay goes up in smokes because of the undefined violations or otherwise.
  • Thats bad news. But it is due to the recession , hope the global economy will improve soon.
  • Honestly, I don't know how Ebay is going to last much longer. I've tried to run some auctions recently, but they've been shut down thanks to all that red tape you've alluded to. The terms are vague, the violations remain undefined, and they can't even maintain a uniform fee structure. Its like you don't know how much using Ebay is going to cost you until you look up the exact type of item you're selling - and you need a crystal ball to know if you'll even be allowed to sell it.

    Meanwhile, the technology necessary for smaller retailers to set up their own business keeps getting cheaper and simpler... I just don't see how Ebay will remain relevant in an increasingly fragmented internet.
  • norman
    ebay stinks
  • I really cannot get over the SLEW of bad news I keep seeing through my daily blog reads. This is just unreal.
  • Recession is everywhere, especially with major brands in the industry. Bad news.
  • Who would have thought in such a modern world we could have let the global economy get so inflated!
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