Posts Tagged ‘Investors’

A Short and Profitable History of Skype

May 11th, 2011

How much money is $8.5 million?
The story of Skype is the stuff of fiction and movie script writers, a dramatic tale filled with twists and turns. Skype was founded in 2003 by Mr. Zennström and Mr. Friis who sought to create a company that let people make phone calls over the Internet instead of traditional copper lines. The free service took off as many consumers and businesses began to use it to get around expensive international calling rates. Calls to other users of Skype are free, while calls to traditional landline phones and mobile phones are charged a small fee

The beginning
The Skype software was invented and developed by Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn, the same individuals who together with the Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström and Dane Janus Friis were also originally behind the peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa. In April 2003, Skype.com and Skype.net domain names were registered. In August 2003, the first public beta version was released.

The name
One of the initial names for the project was “Sky peer-to-peer”, which was then abbreviated to “Skyper”. However, some of the domain names associated with “Skyper” were already taken. Dropping the final “r” left the current title “Skype”, for which domain names were available.

Sold to eBay
In October 2005 eBay purchased Skype for $2.6 billion. In April 2006, the number of registered users reached 100 million. By early 2008, the tumultuous ownership relations between the Founders and eBay had resulted in significant leadership churn, with a succession of Skype presidents between 2005 and 2007. The business had failed to meet certain earn-out targets, growth was decelerating, product development had slowed significantly, and in October 2007 eBay took a $1.4 billion ‘impairment’ on the value of Skype, admitting it had overpaid, and now valuing the company at about $2.7 billion.

Latest sale
On 10 May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion. This marked a 300% increase in value for the company in the three years since the eBay write-down in October 2007. It is Microsoft’s largest acquisition ever. Skype is now a division within Microsoft with Skype’s former CEO Tony Bates now its president reporting to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The price Microsoft paid for the company is 32 times higher than Skype’s operating profits. According to the Financial Times this raises fears of a new tech bubble.

Investors
Investors who acquired a majority stake in Internet communications provider Skype Global during the depths of the financial crisis stand to be handsomely rewarded. The biggest winner is private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, the largest current shareholder of Skype with about 39% of the Luxembourg-based company. The second largest shareholder is eBay Inc., which held on to a 30% stake in the company after selling most of it in 2009 to the current investor group.

Other winners
These include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which owns about 12%; venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the smallest shareholder at 3%; and Joltid Ltd., an investment company partly owned by Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, which owns 14%. Messrs. Zennström and Friis each own 18.75% of Joltid directly, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tags: eBay, Investors, Microsoft, skype
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