Ebay has reportedly found a taker for its enterprise unit, which is used by large retailers to run their online stores. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the e-commerce company may announce the sale of eBay Enterprise to a group of buyers led by private equity firm Permira for about $900 million on Thursday.
That is the same day as its second-quarter earnings report, and one day before eBay is expected to complete its spinoff of PayPal. TechCrunch has emailed eBay for comment.
Ebay spent $2.4 billion to purchase the enterprise unit in 2011, when it was called GSI Commerce. If the sale to Permira goes through, eBay will take a loss of more than a billion dollars from its acquisition price.
The $900 million pricetag is also slightly less than the $1 billion another potential buyer, Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, was reportedly considering.
With its growth lagging behind competitors like Amazon, eBay has been busy streamlining its business. The company first disclosed in January that it was thinking about unloading the Enterprise unit , in addition to spinning off PayPal after pressure from activist shareholder Carl Icahn. Earlier this year, it laid off seven percent of its employees, representing about 2,400 jobs.
Ebay also sold a 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist back to the classifieds site last month.