Ebay closes Skype sale
EBAY HAS FINALLY completed its sale of Internet phone and chat service Skype for about £1.66 billion (over $2 billion).
Settling the Skype founders' copyright infringement lawsuit meant Ebay could offload a 70 per cent stake in the firm to a group of outside investors. The sale will earn Ebay roughly $1.99 billion and it gets to keep 30 per cent of the company. The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion.
The sale, first announced at the beginning of September, came after Ebay earlier had vowed to sell the operation before the end of the year.
Ebay probably would have liked to have sold for more, after paying $2.6 billion (£1.57 billion) for Skype in 2005. As part of Skype's debt refinancing, Ebay also bought senior debt securities with a face value of $50 million.
The investor group that bought the controlling stake in Skype includes private equity firm Silver Lake, Joltid Limited, investment firm Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
This is ironic that the Canada Pension Plan board invest in Skype when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is not allowing Skype to sell its SkypeIN product and allow Canadians to receive calls from land-lines.
I guess the Canadian Government right hand does not talk to the left hand!
We don't let Skype in so you don't take our money.
We buy Skype so we get to take your money.
Look, a beaver!