The splitting up of the eBay empire continues.
eBay has completed the previously announced sale of its eBay Enterprise division, which helps retailers enhance their online presence and e-commerce capabilities, to a consortium led by private equity firm Permira for $925 million. The consortium of buyers has separated eBay Enterprise into four distinct businesses:
Enterprise Operations & Enterprise Technology Services is owned by Sterling Partners, the Magento Commerce Technologies business and Enterprise Marketing Solutions business are owned by the Permira Funds, and the consortium has sold the CRM business to Zeta Interactive, a data-driven marketing technology company.
Magento Commerce, which had served as eBay’s e-commerce platform, will now operate independently but still offer the same applications. These include order management, point-of-service, and platforms scaled for small and large enterprises. Mark Lavelle, formerly senior VP at eBay Enterprise, will lead the company as its new CEO.
Permira will operate the Enterprise Marketing Solutions business with private equity firm Banneker Partners. The company will focus on omnichannel customer experience, with offerings including display advertising, search marketing, social marketing, and data and analytics.
Sterling Partners will integrate the enterprise services division of eBay Enterprise with operations of Innotrac Corp., one of its portfolio companies, to form a new independent omnichannel commerce company. The new company will offer platforms in the areas of omnichannel ship from store, software, order management, payments, tax, and fraud solutions globally.
The operations portions of eBay Enterprise and Innotrac will be integrated starting after the 2015 holiday season, and the company will be re-branded in 2016. Tobias Hartmann, former VP and general manager of the enterprise services division of eBay Enterprise, will serve as the president of the new company.
The CRM business includes the email, hosted database and attribution solutions from eBay Enterprise. Zeta will integrate eBay Enterprise’s CRM capabilities into its existing platform. Regina Gray, head of eBay Enterprise's CRM division, who will be joining Zeta as a senior VP.
eBay is now officially out of the hosted solution provider business, having divested itself of the PayPal online payment platform earlier this year. The company is taking the opposite approach from competitors such as Amazon and Google, which are expanding their presence in providing hosted e-commerce and enterprise technology.