• The (London) Times, Monday, January 26, 2009 12:15 PM

The (London) Times reports that eBay is getting ready to sell Skype, the Voice Over Internet Protocol provider purchased by the Web giant for $2.6 billion four years ago.

Industry watchers believe that CEO John Donahue signaled eBay's intent to sell during the company's fourth quarter earnings call last week. Donahue described Skype as a "great stand-alone business", admitting that, "the synergies between Skype and the other parts of our portfolio are minimal. We're going to continue to run and operate the business. It's not a distraction currently. And at such time when we have further announcements on that, we'll let you know." Those comments immediately sparked rumors that eBay would sell. Said MorningStar analyst Larry Witt: "If someone's willing to pay the right price, I don't think (eBay) would have a problem selling it...I think they made it clear it's not a core part of their strategy going forward."

Jack Murphy, an analyst for William Blair, agreed. "It's important that eBay has opened the door to a buyer by talking about Skype as a stand-alone business. It would be best for eBay to get whatever cash they could for it and focus on their struggling core marketplace business." Possible buyers include Google, AT&T and Verizon, the analysts said.

Read the whole story at The (London) Times »