Watchdog clears £2.9bn Viagogo and StubHub merger
A $4bn (£2.9bn) merger of ticket resale websites Viagogo and StubHub has been approved by a UK watchdog.
Viagogo was given the green light to acquire StubHub after US investment group Digital Fuel Capital agreed to buy part of the business.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had instructed Viagogo to sell StubHub’s operations to another buyer to avoid an entity handling around 90 per cent of resold UK event tickets in the UK.
Massachusetts based Digital Fuel Capital will buy StubHub International for an undisclosed fee.
The merger was announced just as the coronavirus outbreak was shutting down the live events industry.
It will mark a homecoming for Viagogo founder Eric Baker, who co-founded StubHub before it was sold to eBay in 2007 for $310m.
Cris Miller, the vice president of business development at Viagogo, said: “We appreciate the CMA’s role in bringing the merger to this conclusion, and we look forward to sharing more details about the integration of the two businesses with our loyal customers and partners very soon.”
Robust competition in the ticketing market was needed “more than ever” as the live events sector emerged from the pandemic, Miller added.
Critics have claimed that the ticket resale websites have sometimes misled consumers and exploited music fans.