eBay to Sell Skype Via IPO
By Anna Johnson on April 16th, 2009Despite reports of the founders of Internet phone service Skype raising capital to buy back the company from eBay (eBay bought Skype from Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis in 2005 for $2.6 billion) eBay has decided to spin off Skype as a separate company. eBay will sell Skype via an initial public offering (IPO) during the first half of 2010.
eBay’s plan to sell Skype comes just a day after its announcement to sell social bookmarking service StumbleUpon to the founders of that service.
eBay CEO John Donahoe said the decision to sell Skype was prompted by its ‘limited synergies with eBay and PayPal.’
The choice of an IPO rather than a sale to the Skype founders is presumably due to the founders failing to pony up enough money for Skype.
All in all, it seems eBay is getting rid of its non-core businesses in order to focus on its online auction and payment processing businesses.
