eBay seen to be selling Enterprise unit soon

San Francisco

EBAY is close to selling its Enterprise unit for roughly US$900 million to a consortium led by private equity firm Permira, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

A deal was expected to be announced as soon as Thursday, said the person, who declined to be named because the discussions were confidential. The final details for a sale had not been worked out, the person added.

An eBay spokeswoman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Permira. The talks to sell the Enterprise unit to Permira were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

eBay Enterprise is a warehouse and logistics unit for third-party sellers that eBay acquired in 2011 for US$2.4 billion; at the time, the business was known as GSI Commerce.

Any deal would come on the eve of eBay's split into two entities, with the company set to spin off its PayPal payments unit from its online marketplace business. EBay was scheduled to report quarterly earnings Thursday, its last financial report before spinning off PayPal on Friday.

John Donahoe, eBay's chief executive, said in 2011 that the company was acquiring GSI Commerce in reaction to the shifting retail landscape.

"The boundary between offline and online commerce is coming down at a stunning rate," he said at the time, creating a "multichannel environment" that is changing the way retailers do business and how they reach their customers.

Mr Donahoe will step down as chief executive once the Pay- Pal spinoff is complete. NYT