Updated: Ebay has announced that Skype has finally been sold off by Ebay to a bunch of Vc’s and PE firm owners for a valuation of 2.75 billion dollars (less by about 350 million dollars than what Ebay paid to acquire Skype). the group of PE firms would acquire about 65% of the company while 35% would continue to stay with Ebay. This deal is interesting in many ways but the main point it showcases is the problem of hype deals which happen in a booming market and how they cost the acquiring company dearly.
Original post - Ebay has been hinting at this since more than a year now. We first asked the question in april last year about Ebay’s plan to get rid of Skype. The 3.1 billion dollar acquisition had become a financial headache and we did point out the reasons as well. Infact Ebay had recently invited the founders of Skype for a buy back as well and reports are also stating that it tried and wooed google into a buyout of the VOIP player as well.
But as none of the options seemed to have worked out NYTimes latest report states that Ebay is close to announcing a deal with private investors. The report names Andreessen Horowitz, a new venture capital firm headed by the Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen as the likely acquirer of Skype.
Though Skype continues to be the leading VoIP service in the world with 25 % Yoy revenue growth to $170 million and by adding 37.3 million new registered over the last year taking their user tally to 480.5 million registered users it still suffers at the hands of a little know company Joltid from which it licenses technology to run its service. Ebay has taken Joltid to a U.K. court earlier this year in a bid to resolve the licensing dispute but things only got more complicated with Joltid terminating the contract. The court case is still ongoing and is due to come up for hearing in June 2010.
It remains to be seen at what price and valuation Skype finally changes owners. It certainly is expected to be way lower than 3.1 billion. How low is what everyone wants to know..
