A U.S.-based multinational private equity firm is in talks to acquire a major stake in South Korea's No. 2 e-commerce company Ticket Monster Inc. for 350 billion won ($316.5 million), industry sources said Tuesday.

KKR & Co. L.P. is in the final stage of negotiations with the local arm of Deutsche Bank AG, the sale manager of the deal, to take over a 51 percent stake in the daily deal site, according to the sources.

KKR is said to have partnered with Hong Kong-based investment firm Anchor Equity Partners Asia Ltd. to jointly hold the stake, they said.

Ticket Monster, more commonly known as TMON here, was put up for sale last October as its owner U.S. Groupon Inc. felt the burden of increasing costs to run it in a cut-throat market with two local rivals -- Coupang and WeMakePrice.

The bidding prices had not been revealed during the previous sale process, but the sale failed due to the higher-than-estimated price of TMON.

A number of South Korean companies, including major mobile carrier LG Uplus Inc., had shown interest in buying the e-commerce site.

Groupon took over the whole stake in TMON from U.S. online marketplace operator LivingSocial Inc. for $360 million in 2013 and in less than a year began searching for a buyer. It said it was looking to sell either a partial or controlling stake in TMON.

TMON posted an annual operating loss of 70.8 billion won in 2013, with 114.9 billion won in sales in the same year.

Founded in 2010 by Daniel Shin, a young Korean entrepreneur who graduated from Wharton Business School, TMON had huge success in its early years as the first deal-of-the-day site in the country.

South Korea's e-commerce market has grown fast in the past few years to a size worth around 3.4 trillion won as of end-2014, buoyed by the strong mobile network available nationwide. But such an industrial fad has led market players to battle for lower-prices, hurting their profits. (Yonhap)