Trade Me has announced it has received a preliminary proposal from a UK equity firm for a 100 percent takeover at $6.40 a share.
The offer is worth around $2.5b, TradeMe said, a 25.5 per cent hike on last night's closing share price of $5.10.
The share price shot up 18 per cent to over $6 a share t his morning , after the announcement.
In a statement to the NZX this morning, the board of Trade Me said it was not certain whether the proposal would result in an offer.
The proposal comes from Apax Partners, a British private equity firm, based in London.
TradeMe was created and founded by Sam Morgan for a few thousand dollars in 1999 and sold to Fairfax Media in 2006 for $700m.
It was floated on the NZX in 2012.
Apax is set to present its bid to the TradeMe board on December 12.
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