Skype In Safe Hands With Majority Stake Purchase?
By Anna Johnson on September 3rd, 2009At the start of this week it was announced that Skype Technologies S.A. and an investor group led by Silver Lake had agreed to buy a 65 percent equity stake in Skype Technologies from eBay for approximately $1.9 billion in cash, effectively valuing Skype Technologies at $2.75 billion.
The deal sees eBay retain a 35 percent equity stake, but the controlling shareholding go to the investor group, which includes Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).
Good deal? Yes, if you go on sales and users. In 2008, Skype Technologies generated revenues of $551 million, 44 percent more than in 2007. Registered Skype users reached 405 million by the end of 2008, 47 percent over the number in 2007.
Skype head, Josh Silverman, expressed his enthusiasm for the deal, saying that Skype would be “back to being a fully independent company again, but with a new group of owners who believe passionately in our mission and in the ability of our team to deliver on it.”
The potential spanner in the works is the litigation between the original founders of Skype and eBay over its licence to the Skype software. Read this TechCrunch article for more information about that.
Like many Internet marketers who frequently use and love Skype I can only hope that the eBay and/or the new shareholders resolve the litigation and continue enhancing the technology.
