EBay Is Said to Have a Deal to Sell Skype
SAN FRANCISCO — EBay plans to announce on Tuesday a deal to sell its Skype Internet calling division to a group of private investors, according to two people briefed on the company's plans. — The investment group is likely to include Andreessen Horowitz …
Context & Ripple Effects
eBay had been weighing a Skype sale since 2008, and in April it set out a 2010 Skype IPO plan. The reported investor transaction would replace that public-market route with a private-owner exit.
The prospective buyer group emerged in late-August reporting on a Skype bid, while Andreessen Horowitz had launched a $300 million fund in July. The report identifies the firm as a likely participant, not a confirmed buyer.
First-order effects
- If the reported deal is completed, eBay relinquishes Skype rather than pursuing the planned IPO, while the investor group takes responsibility for Skype's strategy and financing.
- Skype's employees, users and partners would face a change in corporate ownership after eBay's earlier efforts to tie the calling service to its commerce business.
Second-order effects
- A private-investor sale would make Skype's standalone valuation the immediate benchmark, displacing the $1.6 billion to $3.1 billion IPO-value estimates cited in April.
- Andreessen Horowitz's possible participation would extend its new fund from early-stage investing into a high-profile carve-out, if the group is confirmed.
Third-order effects
- The transaction points to a quasi-exit model in which a parent sheds a mismatched subsidiary to specialist investors instead of forcing an IPO timetable.
- If more internet acquisitions fail to produce operating synergies, private investor groups may become a more common route for separating mature digital businesses from their original acquirers.
The trend: The reported Skype transaction is part of a broader shift toward separating acquired internet businesses when standalone ownership appears more viable than parent-company integration.