European auction site QXL confirmed it had received a preliminary approach that "may or may not lead to an offer being made", but declined to identify the suitor.
The UK auctioneer has operations in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland and the Ukraine. It was worth £1.7bn at the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.
Analysts said eBay has been waiting for QXL to sort out the three-year legal dispute occurring between management within its Polish division, which ended in June last year.
QXL paid the Polish division's management £56m in shares to buy back the group and this lifted the company's profits by 222% to £9.75m in the year ending March 31.
Shares at QXL were resting at £16.45 at 11am today, which values the company at around £759m.
Analysts predict the buy-out price could be a figure as high as £22 per share, due to the increasing economic growth of eastern European countries.
An acquisition would consolidate eBay's control over the global online auction marketplace.