Online marketplace eBay is spinning off its PayPal payments unit into a separately traded company, it said on Tuesday morning. It was nine months ago that activist investor Carl Icahn began agitating for the separation of the two businesses. By April, Icahn and eBay settled their differences, with the activist dropping his proposal, and eBay granting Icahn's wish for former AT&T CEO David Dorman to be appointed to the company's board. But eBay ultimately sided with Icahn's thinking on the matter with today's decision. It was 12 years ago that eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Since then, the payments unit has grown to constitute roughly 40% of eBay's total revenue. Since PayPal is growing almost twice as fast as eBay's marketplace, the payments unit is projected to have revenue equal to that of the e-commerce platform.
For more visit: www.thedeal.com
