Skype $1.9-Billion Sale Finalized

Skype has had its most tumultuous year yet, but all the problems are finally behind it and the company can focus on growth and revenue as opposed to lawsuits. eBay has announced that it has finalized the sale it first revealed several months ago and that Skype is now a separate private company, although eBay still retains a 30 percent stake in it.

“eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) announced today that it has successfully completed the previously announced sale of its Skype communications unit in a deal valuing the business at $2.75 billion. The buyer, who will control an approximately 70 percent stake, is an investor group led by Silver Lake and includes Joltid Limited and certain affiliated parties, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz,” the company said in a statement.

Almost all of the details of the deal had been known and it is actually very close to the one initially announced except for the change in the investor lineup. Skype was valued at $2.75 billion, well above what anyone estimated a few months back when eBay announced its plans to spin off the VoIP company in an IPO. eBay will get $1.9 billion in cash and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. It also gets to keep about 30 percent of the company and about $50 million in debt.

The investors are mostly the ones initially announced with some small but very important changes. Index Ventures, the venture capital firm, which put together the deal in the first place, is out and Joltid is in. This was a crucial part of lawsuit settlement between eBay and Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, which own Joltid. The two parties were involved in several lawsuits over Skype which threatened the intial IPO plans, but also the proposed sale. In the end, eBay had to give up a stake in Skype to the two founders, something it had been extremely reluctant to do.