Emart Completes Acquisition of eBay Korea... Rises to 2nd Place in E-commerce (Comprehensive)

Subsidiary Acquisition from the 15th
Acquisition Cost of 3.5591 Trillion Won

Emart announced on the 11th that it had received board approval for the acquisition of eBay Korea's shares.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Emart has completed the acquisition of eBay Korea. Emart announced on the 11th that it received board approval for the acquisition of eBay Korea's shares. Accordingly, eBay Korea will be incorporated as a subsidiary of Emart starting from the 15th.

Emart plans to acquire 80.01% of the shares of Apollo Korea LLC, the 100% parent company of eBay Korea LLC, through Emerald SPV, with an acquisition price of 3.5591 trillion KRW. Emerald SPV is a special purpose vehicle established by Emart for the acquisition of eBay Korea.

With this acquisition of eBay Korea, Shinsegae has instantly become a leading player in the domestic e-commerce market. Shinsegae's share of the domestic online shopping market approaches 15%, combining SSG.com’s 3% and eBay Korea’s 12%. This establishes a three-strong system alongside Naver Shopping (17%) and Coupang (13%).

Within Shinsegae, eBay Korea will serve as the leading company in the group with the largest transaction volume as a single company. Additionally, as the online proportion of Emart’s business grows to 50%, the core of the business will shift from offline to online.

eBay Korea will continue to operate separate platforms such as Gmarket, Auction, and G9 for the time being. Emart plans to maintain eBay Korea’s workforce as is. Similar to the case of the fashion platform W Concept acquired by Shinsegae in April this year, the sites will operate separately while expanding collaboration to create synergy with group affiliates.

Shinsegae plans to maximize synergy by combining its offline retail operation know-how and logistics capabilities with eBay Korea. In particular, logistics investment efficiency is expected to improve. SSG.com owns three online fulfillment centers, and eBay Korea also has online fulfillment centers in Dongtan and Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, as well as a dedicated overseas direct purchase center in Incheon. Shinsegae plans to invest 1 trillion KRW intensively in online fulfillment centers over the next four years.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.