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Yes, the loan is the leverage. It's secured against the assets of eBay. If the acquisition fails to produce efficiencies the resulting company has a bunch of extra, arguably unnecessary debt from the acquisition that a free-standing eBay wouldn't have.

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Big if.

I think you could frame the debt as lacking necessity but presenting opportunity.

In theory eBay should be one of those bubbly dot-com companies that kind of settled into a lifestyle business by virtue of longevity. It's no longer commanding insane multiples but it has revenue and a dedicated fanbase. They sold off Paypal which was (afaik) the only stable/growing part of the company.

So you're taking a big, but slow-changing auction website and stapling it to a dying brick-and-mortar retail business which survives on meme stock issuance and their die-hard fanbase gambling.

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