eBay Offloads Rent.com; Focuses on Payments and Mobile Commerce
eBay (NASDAQ;EBAY) is selling off one of its online properties – Rent.com – to Primedia, in order to focus on its core e-commerce and payments businesses. [1] Rent.com was acquired by eBay for $400 million in 2004 to get into the online real estate market. Rent.com is one of the largest apartment listing services in the U.S. eBay competes primarily with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and CraigsList.
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Rent.com is part of eBay’s Marketplaces businesses and enables users to search for rental properties online using its free search tool. It connects buyers with sellers and provides a platform to share information like pricing, images, plans etc. It charges a fixed fee from the property owner or manager, whenever a transaction is generated through the site.
Selling Rent.com will not only allow eBay to focus on its core e-commerce marketplace operations and fast growing payments business, but also add some cash to its reserves and direct its attention on the growing mobile commerce space.
Online Marketplaces account for nearly 48% of eBay’s total value, while PayPal accounts for 27%. We currently have a $42 Trefis price estimate for eBay, which stands nearly 10% above its market price.
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Notes:- eBay to sell Rent.com to Primedia, Reuters [↩]