Rakuten, which owns Linkshare, Rakuten Ichiba, Buy.com and Priceminister, has bought a 75% stake in the Brazilian e-commerce platform, Ikeda.
Launched in 1996, Ikeda is a software as a service company which manages the Brazilian online retail operations of firms such as Ri Happy, Le Postiche, Etna, Whirlpool Brazil, Cobasi and Panasonic.
The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Hiroshi Mikitani, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Rakuten called the Brazilian market “exciting” and explained that the attraction of Ikeda was its strength within that market and its “excellent” merchant relationships.
In This Story: Brazil
Brazil is the largest country in both South America and Latin America.
Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas, as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
Its Amazon basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats. Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country.