Dignified withdrawal
Internet marketplace eBay bought Skype for around €2.1 billion ($2.6 billion at the time) back in 2005. Today it announced it's selling a 65 percent stake in it for around $2 billion, having taken four years to discover there are "limited synergies" between the two companies.
While the acquisition is generally viewed as a bad one for eBay, it was keen to point out that the deal values Skype at $2.73 billion, so it has more-or-less broken even.
The new owner of Skype is a consortium of investors led by Silver Lake, which also includes Index Ventures, the Canada Pension Plan and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the founder of web browser company Netscape, which is also showing an interest in backing a new web browser. Andreessen is also a member of eBay's board of directors, as well as that of Facebook.
Back in April, eBay announced it was going to IPO Skype, having concluded it couldn't integrate it into the rest of the company. We can only assume it thought this was an offer it couldn't refuse.
"This is a great deal, unlocking both immediate and long‐term value for eBay and tremendous potential for Skype," said eBay president and CEO John Donahoe. "We've acted decisively on a deal that delivers a high valuation, gives us significant cash up‐front and lets us retain a meaningful minority stake with talented partners."