2015 Acquisitions: Alibaba Buys eBay?

Re/code recently speculated that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA could buy eBay Inc EBAY in 2015.

Jason Del Ray noted that "Alibaba has no legitimate consumer presence in the U.S., which eBay would help with, and the two marketplaces could combine to challenge Amazon in emerging areas overseas. Plus, they both pride themselves on the same differentiator with Amazon: They don’t compete against their own vendors."

Del Ray commented that eBay’s spin off of PayPal in 2015 was "a tacit acknowledgement that both businesses were for sale."

With Alibaba’s $263 billion market value and the demand for its recent bond offering, the company appears to have plenty of financial capital available for substantial acquisitions.

Alibaba has also demonstrated its interest in expanding internationally in both ecommerce and payment services.

Google Inc GOOG was also rumored to have interest in acquiring eBay. In September, news circulated that Google would take a 40 percent interest in the company.

Alibaba recently traded at $105.68, down 0.28 percent.

eBay recently traded at $57.25, up 0.39 percent.

Google recently traded at $529.28, down 0.20 percent.