Ticket reseller Viagogo has agreed to buy its rival site StubHub from eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) in a deal worth US$4bn (£3.1bn).
The merger will see StubHub return to its co-founder, Eric Baker, who left the company before it was sold to eBay in 2007 for US$310mln.
“It has long been my wish to unite the two companies. I am so proud of how StubHub has grown over the years and excited about the possibilities for our shared future”, Baker said.
eBay added in its own announcement that the sale will provide punters with access to hundreds of thousands of tickets across 70 countries, while its interim chief executive Scott Schenkel said the move “maximises long-term value for eBay shareholders”.
However, customers themselves may be less enthused given Viagogo’s controversial reputation.
The site has attracted criticism in the past over its lack of consumer protection, allowing ticket touts to resell tickets on the site at eye-watering mark-ups far beyond the price of the original ticket.
Earlier this year, Viagogo was threatened with court action by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over how it presented key ticketing information to customers, such as advertising tickets without seat numbers or not warning buyers that they may be turned away from an event for buying resold tickets.
Shares in eBay were 1.4% higher at US$35.62 in mid-morning trading in New York on Monday.