The rumored Skype sale has been officially confirmed today, with eBay letting go of 65% of the company in a $2.75 billion valuation. The sale will net eBay $1.9 billion in cash on close, which should happen sometime within Q4 of this year.
I was actually shocked to see such a low price tag on Skype. eBay dropped $3.1 billion on the company back in 2005, but they lowered the price because they said certain synergies weren’t going to work out as planned. Still, Skype makes something like $600 million a year in revenue, so $2.75 billion looks cheap.
The first news of the sale came at the beginning of the year when eBay announced they were preparing Skype for an IPO in 2010. The move was obviously meant to court offers from investment groups, and Silver Lake Partners finally took the bait. There has been no word on whether the new investors will float Skype on the stock market as initially planned.
