Online newspaper edaily has reported that eBay will buy a controlling stake of 34.21 percent in Gmarket, a leading South Korean online marketplace Inc. from Interpark Corp. and its chairman Lee Ki-hyong for $24 a share, or $413 million.

eBay had announced in August it was in talks with Interpark and its chairman.

Nasdaq-listed Gmarket runs customer-to-customer marketplaces and has more than 10 million registered users in South Korea. It competes with eBay’s South Korean unit, Internet Auction Co.

eBay has won conditional approval from South Korea’s antitrust watchdog on the Gmarket deal. When combined, Gmarket and Internet Auction would have 87 percent of the country’s online customer-to-customer market.

Posted: 04|13|09 at 1:46 pm. Filed under: Auction News.