eBay is laying off 1,000 employees and is cutting several hundred temporary workers. It is also reducing open positions. The company said the moves would reduce its global workforce by approximately 10 percent. "The global reduction is intended to simplify and streamline eBay's organization, improve the company's cost structure and strengthen the overall competitiveness of the company's existing businesses."
eBay also announced it was acquiring the U.S.-based online payments business Bill Me Later for approximately $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in outstanding options, and Denmark's online classifieds site dba.dk and vehicles site bilbasen.dk, for approximately $390 million in cash.
eBay hosted an investor conference call Monday at 5:30 a.m. PDT to discuss this announcement. A webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the eBay Investor Relations Web site at http://investor.ebay.com.
eBay President and CEO John Donahoe was quoted in the press release about Monday's news:
"We are making aggressive moves to strengthen our leadership positions in e-commerce and payments to competitively position our company for long-term growth. Bill Me Later is a perfect complement to our portfolio, a company that belongs with PayPal. Together, PayPal and Bill Me Later will make online payments safer, easier and more convenient than ever.
"Our classifieds acquisition gives us another market leadership position in Europe for this rapidly growing part of our portfolio. We are the global leader in classifieds with top positions in Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, and sites in more than 1,000 cities across 20 countries. The acquisition of dba.dk and bilbasen.dk gives us technology and expertise we can leverage across our classifieds portfolio to create better customer experiences."
Commenting on the company's workforce reduction, Donahoe said: "While never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth."
The company also stated it expects to hit the low end of its Q3 2008 revenue guidance and exceed GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share guidance as issued in conjunction with its second quarter earnings release on July 16. eBay is scheduled to announce third quarter results on October 15.
