eBay has agreed to buy the website Motors.co.uk from Cox Automotive for £71.7m – some 3x revenue for the web site which is believed to be only marginally profitable. Motors.co.uk will merge into eBay’s classified ads site, Gumtree. The deal is expected to be completed by early next year. The combined group will offer more than 620,000 car listings. Current market leader, the listed company Auto Trader is believed to have 500,000 car listings, and has revenues of £300m and operating profit margins of 66%. A big fight looms.
eBay steps up for auto fight in UK
