Global buyers line up for Naspers' $2.2 bln Polish auction site sale -sources
By Sophie Sassard and Lina Saigol
LONDON/WARSAW, Sept 19 (Reuters) - South Africa's Naspers is set to receive at least four bids for Allegro in a deal that could value Eastern Europe's No.1 auction website at up to $2.2 billion, sources familiar with the talks said on Monday.
The four bidders are expected to submit offers for "the Polish eBay" ahead of a Tuesday deadline for first-round bids.
The sources said Advent had teamed with U.S. private equity fund Hellman & Friedman; Apax Partners with Canada's CPP Investment Board; Cinven with Permira; CVC Capital Partners (LSE: 0QOQ.L - news) with U.S. buyout group General Atlantic.
Permira, Cinven, Apax, Advent, H&F and General Atlantic declined to comment, while Naspers, CVC (Taiwan OTC: 4744.TWO - news) and CPP were not available for immediate comment.
Advent and CVC have already invested in Poland - the latter with an investment last year in railway utility PKP Energetyka which the government wants to annul.
With (Other OTC: WWTH - news) over 14 million clients, Allegro competes with eBay and Amazon as well as OLX.pl, which is also owned by Naspers.
Poland's e-commerce market is expected to grow by 15 percent in 2016 to 35.8 billion zlotys and to 63 billion by 2020, according to Sociomantic Labs.
Allegro is the largest e-commerce investment for Naspers - Africa's largest company by market value.
Naspers has transformed itself from an apartheid-era publisher into a $65 billion Internet powerhouse by focusing on e-commerce in emerging markets.
It operates in over 130 countries with stakes in Russian internet group Mail.Ru Group and in Tencent Holdings , China's biggest social network and online entertainment company.
Naspers raised $2.5 billion in December 2015 to fund acquisitions.
($1 = 3.8488 zlotys) (Additional reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw and TJ Strydom in Johannesburg; editing by Jason Neely)