Prepared to pay less for
it
The New York Times claims that the Skype founders are trying to buy
back the Voice over IP phone service from Google.
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus
Friis sold their company to eBay four years ago for $2.6 billion and now they
want to buy it back for about $2 billion. Sources told The New York Times
the two men have been meeting with private equity firms and gathering their own
funds to finance the deal.
According to Skype, its service has more than 405
million registered users. The compares with 54 million users when eBay bought it
in 2005. However eBay admits that it bought something it really can't do much
with and it has said that it is willing to sell it for the right price.
The
Times reported that a source with knowledge of the plans said that Zennstrom and
Friis are working toward a deal worth $2 billion. So we guess they think that
it has lost value over the years.