Skype, one of our favorite technologies to make free internet calls, is going to make an initial public offering. Skype S.A. announced that it has filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering. However, the price range or the number of shares have not yet been decided. Many companies like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Captial, amongst others, have been named as book-runners for this offering.
EBay, Skype’s holding company till last year, had not achieved escalating its sales through Skype since it bought Skype about 5 years back. In 2008, it was reported that Ebay was planning to sell Skype if things did not go according to plan. Ebay had even projected Skype’s revenue in 2011 as $1 billion and finally EBay offloaded 65% shares to an investor group led by Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
This IPO offering will definitely help the investors, and EBay to an extent, in raking in some funds at a cost of diluted shareholdings. The main point to be noted is that this IPO allows Skype to tap a wide pool of stock market investors to provide it with large volumes of capital for future growth.
As of now, one can only wait and see how much funds the shares of Skype stand to bring in. What is your take?
