5 years ago: eBay on verge of $1bn bid for Sotheby's

28.02.00: Online auctioneer eBay is said to be poised to make a $1bn bid for control of fine art auctioneer Sotheby's.

Sotheby's launched its own online operation last year amid controversy because it gives art dealers very short deadlines to sign exclusive contracts.

Currently valued at $20bn and with 7.7 million registered users, eBay is in a strong position to take over Sotheby's, valued at 16 times less.

California-based eBay is keen to boost its fine art presence and recently appointed the former president of auctioneers at auction giant Phillips, Kathleen Guzman, as senior director of business development at eBay Great Collections division.

28.02.05: eBay never paid cash for Sotheby's but the two companies did end up linking up online.

In June 2002 Sotheby's and eBay launched a joint auction site, after a previous deal between the 200-year-old auction house and Yahoo! went south.

The deal gave Sotheby's the online expertise of eBay while the online auctioneer got a foothold into the high-end art and antiques market. In April 1999, eBay bought traditional auction house Butterfield for $260m but this investment did not pay off as quickly as hoped.

Most recently eBay has been preoccupied not with growing the range of products bought and sold on its sites but with security. Phishing scams have targeted eBay users heavily and in an effort to maintain customer trust, the company has launched a number of initiatives including private email accounts that can only receive messages from eBay, escrow services and PayPal buyer protection.