BERLIN (Reuters) - German ecommerce investor Rocket Internet <RKET.DE> and United Internet <UTDI.DE> announced plans on Monday to respectively buy back shares held by the other company to cut their cross shareholding.
Rocket Internet said it would buy back up to 10% of its share capital in an offer starting on Dec. 10 and ending on Dec 18, with United Internet committing itself to accept an offer for its 7.4% stake in the company.
Rocket will offer 21.50 euros for each share. The stock was trading up 3.3%% at 0839 GMT.
Rocket Internet founder and Chief Executive Oliver Samwer said in a statement that he would buy shares that the company does not purchase.
Separately, United Internet said it would buy back up to 9 million shares at 29.65 euros per share, with Rocket Internet pledging to accept the offer for 8,135,804 shares it holds in the company.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Tassilo Hummel)
