eBay to Spin Off Skype

In 2005, eBay bought Skype for a million or so dollars and rumor had it that last weekend, Skype’s founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström were planning to buy it back from eBay. While eBay is planning to get rid of Skype, they’re going to sell it back to its founders. Instead, they’re going to spin it off via an IPO in 2010.

eBay CEO John Donahoe just realized that Skype had limited synergies with eBay and Paypal, and that it will be better off as a stand-alone business. Although eBay was happy with Skype’s growth to 405 million users and its new iPhone app, it looks like this wasn’t enough for the e-commerce giant. eBay hasn’t disclosed how much they hope to earn from the Skype IPO, but they do expect an income of over $1 billion by 2012.