EBay announced plans on Tuesday to spin off Skype, its Internet calling division, in an initial public offering aimed at the first half of 2010.EBay has been looking to sell Skype since the beginning of the year. But it could not find a bidder willing to pay a high enough price, despite interest from Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who led a group of private equity firms in making an offer for the rapidly growing calling service.
http://nytimes.com/2009/04/15/technology/companies/15skype.htmlEbay to spin off Skype
Ebay has announced plans to spin off Skype, its online phone unit, with an initial public offering next year following the collapse of talks that would have sold Skype back to its founders.The plan amounts to an admission by John Donahoe, Ebay’s chief executive, that Skype was ill-suited in Ebay’s portfolio. “It’s clear that Skype has limited synergies with Ebay and PayPal,” Mr Donahoe said.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0429e8da-293d-11de-bc5e-00144feabdc0.htmlSkype talks with eBay run into trouble
Ebay, the internet auction site, effectively hoisted the “For Sale” sign on Skype last night when it announced plans to spin off the revolutionary internet calls business in an initial public offering some time next year.Four years after paying $3.1 billion for Skype, eBay conceded that its ambitious plans to harness the new technology to boost its core auction business by enabling buyers and sellers in its on-line marketplace to talk had run into the ground.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6094708.ece
Leave a Reply