eBay to Acquire Skype - About Skype

London, September 12, 2005 – eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY; www.ebay.com) has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration. The acquisition will strengthen eBay’s global marketplace and payments platform, while opening several new lines of business and creating significant new monetization opportunities for the company. The deal also represents a major opportunity for Skype to advance its leadership in Internet voice communications and offer people worldwide new ways to communicate in a global online era. Skype, eBay and PayPal will create an unparalleled ecommerce and communications engine for buyers and sellers around the world.

 

“Communications is at the heart of ecommerce and community,” said Meg Whitman, President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay. “By combining the two leading ecommerce franchises, eBay and PayPal, with the leader in Internet voice communications, we will create an extraordinarily powerful environment for business on the Net.”

Founded in 2002 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Skype offers high-quality voice communications to anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world. The Skype software is easy to download and install, and enables free calls between Skype users online. Skype’s premium services provide low-cost connectivity to traditional fixed and mobile telephones. Skype’s software also offers a robust set of features, including voicemail, instant messaging, call forwarding and conference calling. Upcoming product innovations include Skype video, expressive content such as avatars, and customized toolbars for Outlook and Internet Explorer.

One of the fastest growing companies on the Internet, Skype already has 54 million members in 225 countries and territories. Skype is currently adding approximately 150,000 users a day and has created a thriving ecosystem of products, services, developers, and affiliates. Skype is considered the market leader in virtually all countries in which it does business. In North America alone, Skype has more users and serves more voice minutes than any other Internet voice communications provider.

“Our vision for Skype has always been to build the world’s largest communications business and revolutionize the ease with which people can communicate through the Internet,” said Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder. “We can’t think of any better platform to fulfill this vision to become the voice of the Internet than with eBay and PayPal.”

“We’re great admirers of how eBay and PayPal have simplified global ecommerce and payments,” said Janus Friis, Skype co-founder and senior vice president, strategy. “Together we feel we can really change the way that people communicate, shop and do business online.”

Zennström and Friis will remain in their current positions. Zennström will report to eBay CEO Whitman and join eBay’s senior executive team.

A Powerful Ecommerce and Communications Engine

Online shopping depends on a number of factors to function well. Communications, like payments and shipping, is a critical part of this process. Skype will streamline and improve communications between buyers and sellers as it is integrated into the eBay marketplace. Buyers will gain an easy way to talk to sellers quickly and get the information they need to buy, and sellers can more easily build relationships with customers and close sales. As a result, Skype can increase the velocity of trade on eBay, especially in categories that require more involved communications such as used cars, business and industrial equipment, and high-end collectibles.

The acquisition also enables eBay and Skype to pursue entirely new lines of business. For example, in addition to eBay’s current transaction-based fees, ecommerce communications could be monetized on a pay-per-call basis through Skype. Pay-per-call communications opens up new categories of ecommerce, especially for those sectors that depend on a lead-generation model such as personal and business services, travel, new cars, and real estate. eBay’s other shopping websites — Shopping.com, Rent.com, Marktplaats.nl and Kijiji – can also benefit from the integration of Skype.

PayPal and Skype also make a powerful combination. For example, a PayPal wallet associated with each Skype account could make it much easier for users to pay for Skype fee-based services, adding to the number of PayPal accounts and increasing payment volume.

In addition, Skype can help expand the eBay and PayPal global footprint by providing buyers and sellers in emerging ecommerce markets, such as China, India, and Russia, with a more personal way to communicate online. And consumers in markets where eBay currently has a limited presence, such as Japan and Scandinavia, can learn about eBay and PayPal through Skype. Skype can also help streamline cross-border trading and communications.

With its rapidly expanding network of users, the Skype business complements the eBay and PayPal platforms. Each business is self-reinforcing, organically bringing greater returns with each new user or transaction. The three services can also reinforce and accelerate the growth of one another, thereby increasing the value of the combined businesses. Working together, they can create an unparalleled engine for ecommerce and communications around the world.

Transaction and Financial Information

eBay will acquire all of the outstanding shares of privately-held Skype for a total up-front consideration of approximately €2.1 billion, or approximately $2.6 billion, which is comprised of $1.3 billion in cash and the value of 32.4 million shares of eBay stock, which are subject to certain restrictions on resale.

The maximum amount potentially payable under the performance-based earn-out is approximately €1.2 billion, or approximately $1.5 billion, and would be payable in cash or eBay stock, at eBay’s discretion, with an expected payment date in 2008 or 2009. Skype shareholders were offered the choice between several consideration options for their shares. Shareholders representing approximately 40% of the Skype shares chose to receive a single payment in cash and eBay stock at the close of the transaction. Shareholders representing the remaining 60% of the Skype shares chose to receive a reduced up-front payment in cash and eBay stock at the close plus potential future earn-out payments which are based on performance-based goals for active users, gross profit and revenue.

The above-mentioned dollar and eBay share amounts are approximate, based on the Euro-Dollar exchange rate and eBay’s stock price as of September 9, 2005. The final value of the stock component of the consideration may vary significantly from this estimate based on the value of eBay stock at closing.

Skype generated approximately $7 million in revenues in 2004, and the company anticipates that it will generate an estimated $60 million in revenues in 2005 and more than $200 million in 2006. For Q4-05, eBay expects the acquisition to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.01 and $0.04 respectively. For the full year 2006, eBay expects the transaction to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.04 and $0.12 respectively, with breakeven on a pro forma basis expected in the fourth quarter of 2006. On a long-term basis, eBay expects Skype operating margins could be in the range of 20% to 25%.

The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2005.

About eBay Inc.

Founded in 1995, eBay pioneers communities built on commerce, sustained by trust, and inspired by opportunity. eBay enables ecommerce on a local, national and international basis with an array of websites – including the eBay Marketplace, PayPal, Kijiji, Rent.com and Shopping.com – that bring together millions of buyers and sellers every day.

About Skype Technologies SA

Skype, the Global Internet Communications Company™, allows people everywhere to make free, unlimited, superior quality voice calls via its award-winning innovative peer-to-peer software for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Pocket PC platforms. Skype is available in 27 languages and is the fastest growing voice communications offering worldwide. Since its launch in August 2003, Skype has been downloaded more than 163 million times in 225 countries and territories.  Fifty-four million people are registered to use Skype’s free services, with over 3 million simultaneous users on the network at any one time.  Skype Technologies SA is headquartered in Luxembourg and is growing its offices in London and Estonia.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements regarding Skype and the expected impact of the acquisition of Skype on eBay’s financial results. Those statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the timing of the closing of the transaction, the possibility that the transaction may not close, the reaction of the users of Skype’s services, the future growth of Skype’s user base and public acceptance of Internet voice communication services, rapid technological changes in the Internet voice communications sector, the reaction of competitors to the transaction, global developments in the regulation of Internet voice communication services including those provided by Skype, the possibility that integration of Skype’s offerings following the transaction may be more difficult than expected, and the possibility that entry by Skype and eBay into potential new lines of business will not be successful. More information about potential factors which could affect eBay’s business and financial results is included in eBay’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, the company’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to eBay on the date hereof, and eBay assumes no obligation to update such statements.

UPDATE: Webcast with Meg Whitman, President & CEO eBay, and Niklas

Zennstrom, CEO & Co-Founder of Skype (Monday September 12, 2005 - 8:00 AM

ET).

 

 

via about.skype.com

 

Avalanche kills over here in France

British Boarders Killed by Tignes Avalanche

Two British snowboarders have been killed by a massive avalanche on the North face of the Grande Motte glacier at Tignes. The slab avalanche, which measured 500 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep in places broke 100 meters above the snowboarders at around 3,200 meters. The alert was given shortly after 16h00 by a witness who had seen the avalanche and the two snowboarders. The boarders were carried some 700 to 800 meters over a series of cliffs and were buried under a mixture of snow, ice and rocks.

The two snowboaders were on a popular but technically difficult off-piste route at the time. Aged in their twenties and off-pisteenthusiasts they were season workers based with a small UK tour operator in Val d’Isere. Both were equipped with avalanche beacons. The avalanche occured in a spot that was difficult for the 30 rescue workers to reach, situated between cliffs with the risk of crevasses and further avalanches in the sector. The search was abandonned with nightfall.

The body of one of the snowboarders was found by rescue workers shortly before midday today at the base of a 100 meter cliff. They had detected a signal from his transceiver. An avalanche beacon, belonging to the second victim and mobile phone have also been found. The beacon was in the pocket of the victim’s anorak which had been ripped in two, a testament to the force of the slide. A signal from another piece of electronic equipment has been detected under some 7.5 to 10 meters of snow. A number of deep trenches have been dug but so far with no result. The recovery operation has been suspended for the moment due to the arrival of bad weather and the risk of rockfall and further snow slides.

The avalanche risk was 3 (considerable) at the time with some 30cm of fresh snow in the area; the avalanche bulletin had noted the risk of slab avalanches above 2300 meters. The north face of the Grande Motte is known more for crevasse than avalanche risk. The director of the Tignes Piste Service, Jean-Louis Tuaillon put the accident down to bad luck rather than any particular error committed by the young men. 15 of the 23 French avalanche deaths have occured in the Savoie this season with a worrying increase in the number of off-piste snowboarders and skiers getting caught. Despite a greater emphasis on off-piste safety with the introduction of transceiver training and the SPOT (Skiing Powder of Tignes) there have been two other snowboarder fatalities in the Espace Killy this season.

Snowboard Instructor killed in Val d’Isere - 27 Jan 2005

Four Killed in Separate Avalanches - 25 Jan 2005

Posted by redac on Friday, 22 April, 2005 at 02:36 PM

BBC NEWS | Hardtalk | Greg Roberts' amazing story

Greg Roberts plans to make Shantaram part of a quartet

In a HardTalk Extra interview screened on 30 December, Mishal Husain spoke to Greg Roberts about his new book Shantaram -- a tale of a bank robber who escaped from prison in Australia to live a fugitive life in the slums of Bombay.

 

Click here to watch the full interview

 

Gregory Roberts' first book Shantaram tells an extraordinary story of a man who becomes a drug addict and bank robber, escapes from an Australian prison and flees to Bombay -- where he works a doctor in the slums and runs with the Indian mafia.

Roberts admits that the novel very closely mirrors his own extraordinary life. So why decide to write a novel and not a memoir?

Roberts told Mishal Husain that "I think the novel form chose me. I was a writer before I became a criminal .. my first instinct was to write."

Australia's most wanted man

Roberts became a heroin addict after the break-up of his marriage and losing custody of his young daughter.

"You think that it's going to solve all your problems, but what it does is roll all your problems up into one huge problem which is getting the money for drugs."

In an attempt to fuel his addiction, Roberts began to rob banks, and his three-piece suits and polite manner gained him a degree of notoriety in his native Australia.

Sometimes, when you live a life at such a wild edge, an extreme edge of experience, you can come back into the world -- if you come back at all -- with some essence from that experience that people find useful Gregory Roberts

He was eventually caught and imprisoned -- only to escape in broad daylight and flee the country. He ended up in Bombay, where he was captivated by the huge city and its remarkable energy.

"The first thing you see is the wretchedness and misery. You see the slums and it really does strike you so powerfully. It's a kind of agony looking at it for the first time."

But Roberts said when he got beyond the first shock of the slums, he began to see "the real city and the real people and the real lives that are being led .. it was the freedom that I saw around me. It's a city that manifests a huge degree of freedom compared to the freedoms I'd experienced in my own life."

"Man of Peace"

Roberts befriended a local man who took him to stay in his village in the country. There, the local women decided he needed a new name -- they called him Shantaram, which translates to "man of peace". Roberts was intensely moved by this.

Roberts was once Australia's most wanted man

"I went into the jungle and I sobbed .. because they saw something in me that I didn't know was there."

Eventually, Roberts was arrested and thrown in prison in Bombay, where he was tortured. A man eventually bribed the police to release him, and that man turned out to be a senior figure in the Indian mafia. Roberts repaid his kindness by going to work for him. He smuggled drugs and passports and ran with the mujahedin in Afghanistan.

Writing Shantaram

Roberts was eventually captured in Germany and extradited to Australia, where he served the rest of his prison sentence.

In prison he began to write the book that would become Shantaram -- but saw his manuscript destroyed by prison officers, not once but twice.

The second time he decided the only thing to do was forgive the man who ripped up his life's work: "I looked at the shattered pieces of my own life in front of me and thought, if I don't do something to move past this, it will destroy me .. I found the prison officer who destroyed the manuscript and told him that I forgave him and I understood why he did it."

So what next for Gregory Roberts? He plans to make Shantaram part of a quartet of books. He is reconciled with his daughter, plans to set up mobile clinics in Bombay and works with young offenders in Australia.

"Sometimes, when you live a life at such a wild edge, an extreme edge of experience, you can come back into the world -- if you come back at all -- with some essence from that experience that people find useful."

HARDtalk Extra can be seen on Fridays on BBC World at 04:30 GMT, 11:30 GMT, 15:30 GMT, 19:30 GMT and 00:30 GMT.

 

It can also be seen on BBC News 24 at 04:30 and 23:30

 

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via news.bbc.co.uk