The activist investor Carl Icahn seems to have decided to try a new tactic in his battle with eBay Inc. – a partial spin-off of its PayPal payments unit. He suggested an initial public offering for 20% of PayPal. This move has been received gladly by the online marketplace.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Icahn said in a notice published on his website: “Before the transaction is consummated the companies could enter into a long-term, commercially viable contract, preserving all synergies. A 20% IPO of PayPal could allow for all of the benefits of an independent PayPal, preserves all of the benefits of keeping PayPal in-house and could be structured so as to be tax free to shareholders.”
As reported by Bloomberg, he also wrote: “This type of relationship is customary in partial IPOs and would be particularly important for eBay as currently, outside of PayPal, there does not exist a global payment processing solution competent enough to service eBay’s users.”
Mr. Carl Icahn bought a roughly 2% stake in the company in January this year and has been pleading for dividing eBay and PayPal ever since. The battle between the activist investor and the company has recently taken a more hostile tone as Mr. Icahn directly attacked its corporate governance.
The original offer of Mr. Icahn was rejected by eBay Inc. which stuck to its belief that the business should stay united. The company said in its statement, which was cited by Bloomberg: “A partial separation of PayPal is not a new idea, and we’re glad to see that Mr. Icahn now seems to agree that a full separation of PayPal is not a good idea. But today, PayPal and eBay are better together.”
An official representative of Mr. Icahn explained that he wasnt immediately available to comment the rejection of his idea.
eBay Inc. fell by 0.66% by 13:57 GMT on NASDAQ to trade at $56.92, marking a one-year change of +8.58%. The company is valued at $74.18 billion. According to CNN Money, the 37 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for eBay Inc. have a median target of $64.00, with a high estimate of $75.00 and a low estimate of $55.00. The median estimate represents a +11.69% increase from the previous close of $57.30.
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