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Posted by n1b0m 3 hours ago

GameStop makes $55.5B takeover offer for eBay(www.bbc.co.uk)
136 points | 86 commentspage 2
schnitzelstoat 2 hours ago|
I guess if people use eBay a lot to sell used games then there is something of an overlap there. Otherwise, it seems pretty weird.
harvey9 2 hours ago||
That sneaker company that pivoted to data centers set the 'weird' bar pretty high.

GameStop has physical stores so could be a place to send, collect from or even verify high value eBay items.

crispyambulance 1 hour ago|||
> ...sneaker company that pivoted to data centers set the 'weird' bar pretty high...

"Weird" is the wrong word for Allbirds. "Fraud" is far more fitting. They obviously have no intention running an AI-datacenter business and are doing it for the stock-price rush. A small number of people will be laughing all the way to the bank, and everyone will forget Allbirds in short order.

Ebay has a history of being legit, though they have had a long list of uncanny acquisitions themselves (including Skype, which they later sold for a stiff loss). It's a pity they couldn't just execute on their core business and are now being acquired themselves by an entity using sketchy financial shenanigans.

Who's going to stop a few rich people with a pile of money and a stated intent of doing something they have no intention of doing? No one, I guess. I mean, there's plenty of examples. Supermicro is still listed on NASDAQ even though one of their founders was caught smuggling export-controlled GPU's in Supermicro servers to the tune of 2.5 billion dollars a couple months ago.

fg137 2 hours ago||||
Based on my own experience with GameStop, that will convince me to stop using eBay completely.
reddalo 36 minutes ago||
I'd be sad because eBay works great (even if their software is old and would need a complete rewrite).
idiotsecant 14 minutes ago||
Why does it need a rewrite if it works great?
gizajob 2 hours ago|||
EBay is running a platform (very successfully) not a pawnshop.
mchonedev 2 hours ago||
If I understand correctly, I think the collectibles market is more in line with what GameStop is looking at here. They recently got into the trading card game including grading services via PSA.
dgellow 1 hour ago||
Is that market really that large? That sounds very niche, but I don’t know the collectible world
jimz 7 minutes ago|||
[delayed]
ricardonunez 35 minutes ago||||
A quick google says 320 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to over $535 billion by 2033. I didn't know it was that big but it makes sense. Gamestop has been all in in collectibles and eBay has a huge market on it as well. I think this is the play. Both companies being profitable doesn't make it a bad deal for the number one collectibles company in the world.
Ekaros 35 minutes ago|||
I have followed from side and it feels like NFT craze hot. With some parts like Pokemon cards being insanity with regular fights, people hiding in stores and so on.

It is a multi billion dollar market with Ebay being key secondary market with Gamestop angling for same.

TrackerFF 2 hours ago||
So they want to pay half of that with a meme stock?
bilekas 1 hour ago||
If they can do some accounting trickery to pull this off then they deserve it. Makes zero sense to me but I did not think GameStop had even close to that in assets.
hdndjsbbs 1 hour ago|
It's the leveraged buyout playbook. You buy a company and use its own assets to secure a loan. Then you "find efficiencies" (strip it for parts to pay yourself and the creditors).
59percentmore 53 minutes ago||
In this case, if the deal goes through at the price given, eBay's liquid assets are untouched. The cash portion is paid out entirely through the loan and Gamestop's cash.
CWwdcdk7h 7 minutes ago||
> $20 billion in debt financing

This debt will carried by company resulting from merge. It might be not classic leveraged buyout but if they have any trouble with repaying it, it will end in asset liquidation all the same.

jofzar 2 hours ago||
I was seeing the news about this calling it GameStop eBay takeover and I assumed it was eBay buying GameStop and I was like, huh that doesn't really make sense for eBay to buy GameStop but maybe they want the physical locations?

How the hell can GameStop buy eBay, this is insane.

mrweasel 2 hours ago|
The other way around made more sense to me as well. I don't see this going well for eBay, but I also don't entirely know how well their business is doing.

Here local eBay "clones" aren't in a good place and have been left as ghost towns after Facebook Marketplace.

olalonde 2 hours ago||
"I like the stock" - GameStop
wigster 1 hour ago||
i don't understand why ebay looks SO terrible. It seems like some broken website where css failed to load.
woodydesign 2 hours ago||
From storytelling to investor POV, does it a good story to frame this as entering the AI era through a digital service that everyone familiar with?
techterrier 1 hour ago||
is this for real? Or just to get gamestonks back into the news for another whirl on the wheel of meme?
Ekaros 33 minutes ago|
They have managed to raise lot of money and don't have any proper ideas what to use it for. So this might not be worst possible way.
rasz 1 hour ago||
Reminds me of Sierra On-Line being acquired by CUCk International in 1996.
sgt 45 minutes ago|
That was a sad story. Al Lowe talked about it a couple of years ago on a German podcast.
kome 2 hours ago|
ebay is still "old internet", and genuinely useful and well built. enshittification is incoming...
GaryBluto 39 minutes ago||
Have you used eBay in the last few years? It's awful for sellers and awful for buyers. This is coming from somebody who buys on eBay twice a month on average.
thinkingemote 5 minutes ago|||
I use it more frequently than Amazon for used books and DVDs. It's cheaper and the sellers are often exactly the same.
johnmaguire 23 minutes ago||||
What would make it better? My only complaint as a seller is fees. I have no complaints as a buyer.

The best part is eBay works exactly the same as 10 years ago, as far as I can tell.

jitler 27 minutes ago|||
It’s still way better than Facebook marketplace. At least eBay mostly solved the scam issue. Zuckerberg seems to desire fraud on his platforms.
consp 2 hours ago||
For an old internet company they sure know how to enshittify global selling with their Global Shipping Program also know as Global Shitting Program.
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