Ebay Unloads Most of Skype for $1.9 Billion

Ebay must be sighing in relief now that it’s unloaded a big chunk of the VoIP service Skype. The private investors picking up the $1.9 billion tab include Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen’s firm Andreesen Horowitz and three other groups. Having purchased Skype in 2005 for $3.1 billion, Ebay is basically selling the majority of the company back for even money, and it still gets to see any profits that Skype might make in the years ahead. Keep in mind, though, that the money Skype is earning now — revenue was $550 million last year — is a drop in Ebay’s revenue bucket. Since attempts to combine Skype services into Ebay failed, there just wasn’t any reason to keep the company around. Here’s hoping that both services are better without each other. [via Wired]