Skype will be sold after all. eBay plans IPO by 2010

The situation around eBay’s unit Skype is getting clearer as the company plans to spin off the telephone service company. On Tuesday eBay announced that it will offer IPO for Skype by the first half of 2010. According to some sources eBay Inc hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to manage Skype's separation from the company and run the process for an initial public offering, reports Reuters.

eBay is believed to seek more than $2 billion for Skype whereas analysts doubt if it will manage to collect so much given the current economy state. When Whitman purchased the unit in 2005 the company paid $2.6 billion for it which was eBay’s biggest ever acquisition and, it should be added, the most unreasonable according to some observers.

John Donahoe, current CEO of eBay, reiterated that Skype has no synergies with the rest of the business which includes Web payments service PayPal along with its core auctions business.

"We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential," Donahoe said in a statement on Tuesday.

"That Skype didn't fit into the rest of the business was apparent from day one," said RBC analyst Stephen Ju.

"The book value of this asset is about $1.7 billion. It wouldn't surprise me if they would try to get something like $2 billion," he said. That implies a roughly 10 times EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) multiple based on Skype's 2011 revenue target of $1 billion and its current operating margins of 20 percent, he added.