No formal talks have taken place yet, however, and there is also no guarantee that eBay would agree to a deal. It is currently valued on the stock exchange at more than 28 billion dollars. The reports indicate that ICE is primarily interested in Ebay's core business, the online marketplace, and not in its small ads operation. Ebay is considering selling this anyway.
It is assumed that the bid by ICE is connected to the publication of the financial figures for 2019, according to which sales stagnated in 2019 and the volume of the marketplace, adjusted for currency effects, fell by as much as two per cent compared with the previous year. In the 4th quarter of 2019 the GMV (Gross Merchandising Volume) declined by four per cent and the number of users failed to increase for the first time in 18 months.