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EBay plans to offload Skype, as the company has been unable to cash in on the popular VoIP service

EBay yesterday confirmed it has sold most of Skype to a group of investors for $1.9 billion. The investors now own 65 percent of the company best known for its VoIP service, with the following financial breakdown:  $1.9 billion cash, 35% equity investment and $125 million bond -- ends up being just a bit less than the $3.1 billion eBay paid four years ago.

"Selling Skype now at this great valuation, while retaining an equity stake, makes sense for the company," said eBay CEO John Donahoe, said in a press statement.  "And it allows us to focus all of our energies on the opportunities in front of PayPal and eBay."

EBay will be able to use the money made from the deal for  future acquisitions to strengthen its core auction business.  After successfully beating out Google and Yahoo for the right to purchase Skype, eBay has been unable to integrate its VoIP services into eBay.

There were several rumors the past couple of weeks that an investor group would purchase Skype, but the deal wasn't confirmed until today.  Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, venture capital firm Index Venture and Canada pension Plan Investment Board are several of the investors involved in the purchase.

Analysts are unsure if Skype will be able to grow as an independent company, but the investor groups will likely keep a tight control of the company.

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RE: Wrong Business Plan
By croc on 9/2/2009 5:42:51 PM , Rating: 3
"I see where ebay went wrong with this purchase. They needed the to follow the correct business plan
Step One - Buy Skype
Step Two - ???
Step Three - Profit!"

Step 2 was to make PayPal the only way to pay for the paid service. That worked well, didn't it?

My partner's son works for an international corp, designing and installing custom software. Mobile phone roaming charges were eating up a lot of money. He tried keeping SIM cards on hand for each country with a customer, but that was a pain, plus when a customer from company A tried to call him, he might be in country B

He loves Skype. He maintains a 'local line' near every customer, the roaming SIMS are in the trash, and the roaming charges have been mostly eliminated.


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