Vivid Seats Reportedly Among Potential StubHub Suitors

Vivid Seats LLC is reportedly among the interested parties as eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) considers spinning off leading ticket resale marketplace
StubHub, according to numerous outlets. Bloomberg says that Silver Lake and KKR & Co. are also among those considering a bid, and that bids could range as high as $3 billion for the marketplace, which was purchased by eBay in 2007 for $310 million.

Related: StubHub is for sale: how much is the marketplace really worth?

Those in the ticket resale world are watching the details of the potential sale of StubHub, which had $1.1 billion in net transaction revenue in 2018, with a close eye. If the market leader were to be swallowed up by one of the other big fish in Vivid Seats LLC, it would put an overwhelming amount of market power in the hands of one company.

Representatives for eBay, KKR, Vivid Seats LLC, and Silver Lake did not respond to Bloomberg requests for comment.

eBay has been considering a sale of StubHub alongside its classified business as a result of a clash with activist investors Starboard Value and Elliott Management Corp. Those companies called on eBay to spin off the two properties to focus on its core marketplace business. Elliott Management believed that this plan could help boost eBay’s value to over $60 a share in coming years – eBay stock is trading at $39.67 as of this morning.

To ease the pressure from the large shareholders, eBay announced a strategic portfolio review in March, which was followed by reports in July that the company was moving forward with a potential plan to sell the assets. More recently, the company hired Goldman Sachs to “draw up options” for selling or otherwise breaking up StubHub and Classifieds, according to The Ticketing Business.

Bloomburg’s reporting indicated that the sales process “just started in recent weeks” and that no decision has been made – indeed, the companies mentioned as suitors may opt not to proceed with offers.