By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

eBay said Thursday it will make a cash tender offer of up to $1.2 billion to acquire a controlling stake in Gmarket, Korea's leading e-commerce company.

The per share price is set at $24 for over 67 percent of the Gmarket shares, including a 10-percent stake originally owned by Yahoo.

``This deal creates strong operational synergies between the two market leaders, offering more opportunities for sellers and enhances our ability to serve complementary consumer segments,'' eBay's CEO John Donahoe said in a statement.

The announcement came a couple of days after eBay said it will spin off its Skype unit through an initial public offering.

The online auction firm has been in talks with Interpark, Gmarket's parent company, to buy stakes in the firm since last August. Seoul regulators have given a green light to the deal.

John Pluhowski, eBay's vice president, said the acquisition is one of the largest deals it has made in a decade at a press conference in Seoul.

eBay said this was part of its ambitious plan to advance into the ever-growing Asian online market. Asia is a market moving and growing quickly, Pluhowski said, and the takeover enables the company to build a platform for growth ``not only in Korea, but in Asian regions and beyond.''

Japan will be eBay's first destination to enter after the Gmarket acquisition, said Jay Lee, eBay's corporate senior vice president.

``Gmarket units there will be able to appeal to Japanese customers through eBay's already established networks,'' Lee said.

The company will purportedly combine the Korean e-commerce Web site with its own Korean marketplace unit, Auction, which it acquired in 2001.

It said there were no plans to restructure Gmarket and Auction after the deal.

``There's no reason for restructuring. We need more people in consideration of our advancing overseas,'' Lee said.

Current trade amounts of the two companies stand at about seven trillion won ($5.3 billion) per year, but they aim to expand the size to 10 trillion won, he added.

Gmarket and Auction take up nearly 90 percent of the online shopping market in Korea, with their users estimated at over 15 million.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr