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ведет переговоры о покупке компании Skype, занимающейся интернет-телефонией. Согласно информации Wall Street Journal, предложение находится в промежутке между 2 и 3 млрд долларов. По мнению собеседников WSJ, в случае удачного приобретения серьезно упрочит свои позиции в мире онлайновой коммерции. Пока же о сделке говорить рано: стороны еще не пришли к принципиальному согласию по этому вопросу и сделка может быть прервана в любой момент. Стороны отказались давать комментарии по этому поводу.
Интернет-аукцион ЕBay Inc. согласился приобрести компанию-провайдера интернет-телефонии Skype Technologies SA за $2,6 млрд, сообщили в понедельник осведомленные источники. По информации источников, компания планирует выплатить $1,3 млрд наличными и $1,3 млрд в акциях, а позднее сделать дополнительный платеж в размере до $1,5 млрд к 2008 или 2009 году при условии достижения финансовых целей. Таким образом, общая стоимость сделки может составить до $4,1 млрд. Представители и Skype отказались прокомментировать эту информацию. Покупка Skype, чье программное обеспечение позволяет пользователям бесплатно звонить в любую точку мира через интернет, станет для крупнейшей подобной сделкой за десятилетнюю историю компании. (c) Reuters
to Buy Skype for $2.6 Bln to Enter Phone Market (Update7)
Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Inc., the largest online marketplace, agreed to buy Skype Technologies SA for $2.6 billion, its largest acquisition, to enter the fast-growing market for phone calling over the Internet.
The price may increase by as much as $1.5 billion based on the performance of closely held and unprofitable Skype, whose software for making free Internet calls has 53 million registered users. The two-year-old Luxembourg-based company is expected to cut EBay's 2006 earnings by 12 cents a share and add to profit in 2007, finance chief Rajiv Dutta said in an interview.
, which will offer the service on its auction site to quicken transactions and add new revenue, is making its seventh major acquisition of the past year as sales growth slows from 51 percent in 2004. is chasing Microsoft Corp., Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. for a share of the Internet calling market, expected to surge eightfold to about 27 million U.S. users by 2009, said Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher IDC.
``I don't like the deal,'' said Norm Conley, who helps manage about $950 million at St. Louis-based J.A. Glynn & Co., including about 224,000 shares of ``There's not widespread demand for this service'' from users who rarely have a problem communicating, said Conley. ``The fact that the price is high is also a concern,'' he said.
Skype was founded in August 2003 by Swede Niklas Zennstrom and Dane Janus Friis and the two will run the company at They employed the same Estonian programmers who created the calling software to build Kazaa, the Napster-like software that shook the entertainment industry by letting people share music and video files.
Faster Transactions
Skype, which only charges for calls from computers to mobile phones or traditional fixed lines, will have revenue of $60 million in 2005 and more than $200 million in 2006, according to EBay's statement today. Skype will break even by the end of next year, Dutta said. The only country in the world where Skype doesn't have registered users is North Korea, Zennstrom said.
Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman said on a conference call that Skype will accelerate e-commerce on , whose goal is to outpace the 30 to 35 percent growth rate of online sales industry wide. EBay's revenue is estimated by analysts to grow 35 percent this year.
``Buyers ask questions about a purchase and there are usually a lot of questions after the purchase,'' Whitman said on the call. ``Using Skype would be quicker, easier and very cost effective. Most sellers would be happy to talk to an interested buyer, especially if they could be persuaded to bid straight away.''
Finding Revenue
also may be able to generate revenue from directing calls from interested buyers to dealers of products such as new and used cars, Dutta said. A local business, such as a plumber, that doesn't have a Web site may be willing to pay a fee for jobs generated by calls over , Dutta said.
``Businesses, particularly established and local businesses, really like lead generation,'' Dutta said.
Offering such services could take from months to several years, Dutta said. ``I'd view this certainly not as an event but as a journey,'' he said.
The deal might imply that is desperate to find growth areas, said Ian Warmerdam, who helps manage $750 million in technology stocks at Henderson Global Investors in Edinburgh, U.K. ``I can't quite see where the synergistic benefits are going to lie.''
Disruptive Technology
Voice over Internet technology in general and ``the Skype offering specifically is a disruptive technology and the industry it is disrupting has a cash flow in the tens of billions,'' said Scott Devitt, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker. ``Once you have consumers in the network, you later enter fee structures once massive adoption occurs.''
Shares of San Jose, California-based rose 33 cents to $38.95 at 10:25 a.m. Before today, they have dropped 34 percent from their Dec. 30 high, hurt by smaller gains in profit this year, and declined 3.8 percent Sept. 8 on reports the companies were holding talks.
The purchase of Skype consists of $1.3 billion in cash and 32.4 million shares, said.
Acquisitions
Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s Anthony Noto was among analysts who last week expressed skepticism about a possible purchase of Skype.
``While we think there could be some benefits to providing communication services between buyers and sellers (particularly in China), we struggle to see enough of a benefit to the marketplace from offering this service to get a sufficient return on a potential multibillion dollar price tag,'' Noto wrote Sept. 9. The New York-based analyst rates shares as ``outperform.''
Merrill Lynch & Co. is advising while Morgan Stanley is advisor to Skype.
last month bought Shopping.com Ltd. for $634 million to add another platform where sellers can list merchandise. The company in May agreed to pay an undisclosed amount for London- based Gumtree.com and Barcelona-based LoQUo.com, Web sites featuring listings for housing, jobs and items for sale. The purchase helped it expand in the U.K., Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Microsoft
The online retailer in February paid $415 million in cash for Rent.com to strengthen its foundation in the online real estate market. Among acquisitions last year, the company in August 2004 acquired a 25 percent stake in Craigslist.org, a San Francisco-based operator of classified sites for jobs, furniture and rental ads. agreed to buy Netherlands-based Marktplaats.nl in November 2004 and Mobile.de in Germany in April 2004.
paid $1.5 billion for the PayPal payments business in October 2002.
Microsoft last month bought Internet telephone company Teleo Inc. to allow its MSN unit to test a product developed from Teleo technology this year, the company said. San Francisco-based Teleo, acquired for an undisclosed price, makes software for placing phone calls using so-called Voice over Internet Protocol.
MSN is competing with Yahoo, which bought Internet phone software maker Dialpad Communications Inc. in June, as well as Google in adding voice communication services from a personal computer.
Founders
Skype CEO Zennstrom, 39, co-founded and served as CEO of Kazaa, according to Skype's Web site. Friis, 29, founded both ventures with Zennstrom. They met at Tele2, a European telcomn operator, where they helped launch Danish ISP get2net and the portal everyday.com.
, which is debt free, entered this quarter with $2.75 billion of cash and short-term investments, up from $2.14 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement July 20. Short- term investments include Treasury notes and other investments that can be liquidated in three to 12 months with little loss in value.
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