Europ@web BV, the 500m euro ($534m) net investment arm of French businessman Bernard Arnault, has invested an undisclosed sum for a majority stake in online auctioneer Aucland. The deal is Arnault’s second foray into the auction space, following July’s $30m purchase of a 14.2% stake in UK-based QXL.com Ltd (to be reduced to a 10.5% holding after QXL’s imminent IPO).
Aucland, based in Sophia Antipolis, France, has been trading since April 1999, and has plans to expand into the UK, Italy and Spain in the next couple of weeks. Two of these countries are already QXL territory, raising the prospect of some kind of possible tie-up between the two firms in the future. A Europ@web spokesperson said there are no plans for such a relationship, pointing out that Arnault has interests in competing companies in other markets such as fashion.
Aucland is one of a handful of new auction sites in France. As well as QXL, it competes against the likes of iBazar Group. Pioneer web auction house eBay Inc has yet to make noises in the .fr space, despite rolling out in .co.uk and .de variants. Aucland auctions around 20,000 items per month and makes around one million page impressions.
