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Imagine you’re the head of a large company with three different divisions.  Two of the divisions work extremely well together, while the third seems strange and out of place.  So you try to sell it, and nobody seems interested in buying, at least nobody with the money you want.  What do you do?  Of course, break off the division into its own company and offer it as an IPO sometime in the near future.  Makes sense, right?

That’s exactly what eBay is doing with Skype.  After paying a total of $3.1 billion for the company back on 2005, eBay is having a bout of buyer’s remorse.  So, within the first half of 2010, Skype will be offered up as an IPO.  There will likely be a decent amount of interested parties, as Skype has recently announced it made $551 million in 2008 from 405 million users, and that number is likely to increase to $1 billion by 2011.  Its reach is expanding beyond just the desktop to iPhones, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones, which will likely contribute a lot to that number.  The iPhone app saw 2 million downloads in the first week, with a quarter of those being new users.

The IPO of Skype will potentially open a lot of possibilities for the company.  It wouldn’t be too surprising if the previous owners try to gain a majority of the stock and control the company once again.  They’ve been trying to buy Skype back from eBay as of late, and may see this as an opportunity.  Or perhaps Google, who tried buying Skype back in 2005, might be interested in at least buying some stock to have a stake in the company.  Either way, given how popular Skype has become and its profitability, it wouldn’t be surprising if the IPO gets as hyped as the Google IPO did when it came.

Read [NY Times]
Read [Wired]