EBay has decided to sell Skype for $ 2 billion
Posted on September 23, 2009
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The company eBay Inc., providing various internet services and owning the eponymous online auction site, has reached an agreement to sell its Internet phone service Skype a group of private investors, the publication New York Times reports with the link to the source-data.
According to the newspaper, venture company Andreessen Horowitz, created by one of the founders of Netscape, Mark Andreessen, will join the consortium.
In addition, the transaction will involve London-based venture capital firm Index Ventures and investment company Silver Lake Partners.
Price was not disclosed, but eBay said previously that this unit is valued at $ 2 billion. Annual revenue of Skype this year is $ 600 million.
In 2005, eBay bought Skype from the company Joltid. Including payments to the founders of Skype, then the price exceeded $ 3.1 billion. Later, eBay wrote off up the value of Skype to $ 900 million. It became clear soon that the VoIP-telephony is not integrated with the main focus of eBay – e-commerce and online payments, so it was decided to get rid of unprofitable divisions.
The representative of eBay, Alan Marks (Alan Marks) refused any comment about the information given by the NYT.
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