14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors of an impending Skype sale are getting more substantial after first popping up last week. The gist of the deal is that eBay will sell Skype to a group of private investors made up of venture capital funds and private equity firms. Among the likely names put forward is the newly formed Andreesen Horowitz fund, and a source close to the deal told the New York Times that London private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which was an early Skype investor, is also involved.
EBay, as expected, would not comment on the rumors. The amount involved in the transaction hasn't been put forward but it is believed that eBay wants around $2 billion for the VoIP service. Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who created the Andreesen Horowitz fund with long-time partner Ben Horowitz, is also on the eBay board of directors.
EBay acquired Skype in 2005, a deal that would become a sore spot for the online auctions company. The transaction was supposed to be worth around $4.1 billion but, after several performance markers were not met, eBay ended up paying only $3.1 billion. However, even at this lower price it still had to write off $900 million from Skype's valuation. The initial plan was to integrate the voice technology into the site but after it became clear that this would not work out eBay finally announced in April plans to spin off the company with an IPO coming sometime next year.
However, a recent lawsuit with a company owned by the founders of Skype over an important component powering the communications service peer to peer underlying technology has cast a shadow over the planned IPO though it now seems eBay would much rather get rid of the company altogether than go through the whole IPO process. Still, the impending lawsuit apparently scared off Google, which was approached as a potential buyer last month. The announcement is expected to come in today and it's unclear if Skype's founders are involved in any way in the investment – earlier this year they tried to get support from investment groups to buy Skype – and it's also unclear whether the lawsuit will be dropped.