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eBay to spin off Skype

by on15 April 2009

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IPO planned


eBay is
going to spin of its voice over ip outfit Skype as a public company.

According to a press release the Skype IPO will be completed in the first half of next year. The move will kill off rumours that Skype's founders were attempting to put together an investment group to buy back the company from eBay.

While Skype is a quickly growing company, the outfit's revenue has slowed mostly because of the large user base. There are more than 400 million Skype users, and the company generated $551 million in revenue in 2008.

Ebay has never been happy with its Skype purchase. It never really fitted into the the auction house's portfolio very well. Selling it off at the moment does not make good sense either as any potential buyer will be wanting a bargin basement price.

Ebay paid $2.4 billion for Skype and the current bids for the outfit seem to have settled at $2 billion.  It is hoped that an IPO could generate more cash for the company, although much depends if the market improves between now and the middle of next year.
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