According to Reuters, China’s Alibaba, the US’s online retailer eBay, and private equity firm CVC Capital Partners are currently bidding for Allegro, the Eastern European largest auction site under the South African media group Naspers. The Naspers Group is also one of the shareholders of Tencent.
According to some sources, the Polish online group Wp.pl (owned by Innova Capital) and Onet.pl (controlled by Ringier Axel Springer) are also interested in the Allegro bid.
Informed sources said that the deal's transaction amount will be controlled between 2 billion euros to 3 billion euros (about 22 billion to 3.3 billion US dollars), is expected to be completed before the end of this year.
Founded in 1999, Allegro is currently a subsidiary of Naspers, the company with the highest market value in South Africa. The Naspers Group acquired Allegro in 2008. Since then, Allegro has been the largest e-commerce investment by the Naspers Media Group.
"Allegro is not only a ready-made entrance to Poland, but also allows acquirers to easily enter the interior of Eastern Europe." A source said, "In this battle, strategic bidders Alibaba and eBay will become the most Strong competitors, and from the perspective of anti-monopoly, Alibaba seems to be in a more favorable position."
It is understood that the market size of e-commerce in Poland has exceeded 32 billion zloty (8 billion U.S. dollars), and there are about 22,000 online stores on the market. Considering that the Polish government plans to no longer impose new retail taxes on online shopping, by 2020 its market size will most likely double.
The Naspers Group has been focusing on the development of e-commerce in emerging markets and has now successfully transformed from a traditional publisher to a $65 billion internet giant. It has its own business in more than 130 countries and holds shares in the Russian Internet Group Mail.Ru Group and Tencent, China’s largest social networking and online entertainment company.
And its Allegro website already has more than 14 million customers. Allegro not only competes with its domestic rivals but also competes with Amazon in the United States.
However, so far, Naspers and CVC have refused to respond to the news of the bid, and Alibaba, eBay and Allegro have not stated their position.
(question source: reuters)