Viagogo To Divest StubHub Businesses Outside North America To Please UK Watchdog

viagogo has acquired StubHub from eBay
 – viagogo has acquired StubHub from eBay
Selling point: $4.05 billion.

Viagogo is forced to divest, if it wants the merger with StubHub to be approved by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The company proposed to put all of its business outside of North America up for sale, which includes “the stock of Viagogo Luxembourg Holding Company S.à.r.l. and the subsidiaries that sit within that holding company, which together operate StubHub’s international primary and secondary ticketing business.”
Under this proposal, viagogo aims to retain the StubHub Inc. entity and its subsidiaries, which carry out the secondary ticketing business in the U.S. and Canada.
The purchaser would get StubHub’s entire database of buyers and sellers with addresses outside of North America as well as active listings and inventory (customer and transaction data) owned by StubHub’s international business.
In cases where one party of the ticket transaction is registered in North America and the other one outside, customer and transaction data will go to the purchaser of the divested businesses. 
“The current global StubHub secondary ticketing platform also forms part of the International Divestment business,” a summary of viagogo’s divestment proposals reads.
The platform is currently being migrated to the Google cloud. The purchaser will receive both software and customer data, from which data pertaining to the North American business will be removed. 
“The purchaser will also receive a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, exclusive license to all the intellectual property of the secondary ticketing platform,” the proposal states.
Eric Baker
 – Eric Baker
viagogo founder and CEO, as well as StubHub co-founder.

The purchaser would also receive:

– all of the platforms currently used by StubHub’s international business, together with all associated partnership agreements and primary content rights holder contracts
– all of the vendor licenses/contracts used in the international business, including software licenses currently still held by SubHub Inc.
– Use of the SubHub UK brand for a period of three years, plus a one-year blackout where neither the purchaser nor viagogo can use the SubHub brand in the UK
– the Ticketbis brand and Ticketbis global domains. The Spanish ticketing platform was purchased by former StubHub owner eBay in 2016 to expand StubHub’s international business.
The one thing that won’t be transferred to the purchaser is liability for cancelled events.
A viagogo statement provided to Pollstar reads: “We look forward to working with the CMA to deliver a comprehensive solution which addresses their concerns, and we believe this proposal would achieve that.”