Buy It Now $56 billion – Gamestop wants to buy eBay

It’s one thing to buy something on eBay, but it’s quite something else to buy eBay itself! But that’s the audacious bid from a US video game company. Gamestop have popped in a bid to buy 100% of eBay at $125. 00 per share which values eBay at around $56 billion.

Codenamed ‘Project Sling’, the offer represents a 46% premium to eBay’s unaffected closing price on February 4, 2026, the day GameStop started accumulating its position in eBay. GameStop has built a 5% economic stake in eBay through derivatives and beneficial ownership of common stock. Their offer is made up of 50% cash and 50% GameStop common stock.

eBay has for the past few decades been an attractive long term investment for the likes of pension funds. That’s not because they’ve seen stellar growth (although in the past quarters that’s been changing), but because they turn in a reliable and regular profit each quarter.

Gamestop reckon that they can change that and see the potential to increase profits by cutting costs… so where’s that cost cutting going to come from if their bid is successful? They say that there is potential to cut with the following: ~$1. 2 billion from Sales & Marketing.

Gamestop say that more spend is not producing more users on a marketplace with near-universal brand recognition. ~$300 million from Product Development. Product Development expense grew 11% in fiscal 2025 against revenue growth of 8%. ~$500 million from General & Administrative.

Consolidated finance, HR, real estate, legal, IT, and professional services across the combined company. And then we get to the interesting part of the proposed deal. Gamestop say that on cost reductions alone, eBay’searnings per share would increase from $4. 26 to $7. 79 in year one.

And that beyond cost, GameStop’s ~1,600 US retail locations give eBay a national network for authentication, intake, fulfillment, and live commerce. Ohh… now we see what’s going on, those two tiny words right at the end – eBay Live selling is where we’ve been seeing massive growth from sellers that are taking part.

Yes, it might still be a relatively small part of eBay’s business, but their pushing hard for growth and the results are spectacular. This could well be why suddenly there’s a serious offer for eBay when many have speculated who might acquire them for years.

Sadly, if the offer is accepted then eBay President and CEO, Jamie Iannone is out of a job – Ryan Cohen, Chairman and CEO of GameStop proposes that he be installed as CEO of the combined company. And he doesn’t even want a salary, he’ll be compensated solely based on the performance of the combined company. Good news for eBay to be acquired?

Or bad news for your business? We’d be interested to hear your thoughts.