Rewind. Carl Icahn (who is dubbed an activist investor) has been buying up eBay stock. He may own as much as 2% of the company.
Earlier in the year, as we reported, he was making demands including nominating two members to the eBay Inc. board and also pressing for eBay Inc. to split off PayPal.
At first glance this does all seem fanciful but Icahn isn’t a chap who messes about, it seems. And now the ante has been upped. We could be looking at a serious dispute.
Tamebay has neither the expertise or indeed the insider knowledge on such things to be able to report any new information. But there are sources out there which can illuminate the exact details of this brouhaha much better. It’s a developing story so check out Google if you are particularly voracious for news.
Firstly, Forbes provides an incisive look at the accusations and claims with some evidence of eBay Inc.’s fightback. CNBC also casts some light.
In some sort of amateurish summary: Icahn accuses the eBay board of bad practice and conflicts of interest over both PayPal and (rewind again) Skype. eBay Inc., needless to say has repelled those accusations. Doubtless we’ll see more cross-fire in the days and weeks to come.
As always at Tamebay, we try and focus on what matters to the ecommerce traders who rely on eBay and PayPal everyday for a living and we also think of the many providers who serve that ecosystem. So what does all this mean?
Not much right now. Carry on regardless. But rather like mortals looking up to the bickering gods on Mount Olympus, this may have some sort of trickle down. An eBay/PayPal split up still seems unlikely and unattractive to me though.
But be in no doubt, as millionaires (indeed billionaires) squabble about corporate governance and the like, you are not on their mind. The welfare of your business is not at stake for them. This is an argument about the big bucks. eBay Inc. chaos is a possibility though, however distant.
Shakespeare: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
37 Responses
some insider knowledge or insight even discussion on whats coming in the new seller release is far more urgent and interesting to me ,than something I can do bugger all about
And if you can do something about the seller release I will send you my list!
Maybe Mr Icahn can fire all the staff responsible for seller releases? Do the customers want them?
there need to be rules and conditions in any business, sacking those that are responsible would put us all out of a job?
Why keep changing the rules? Consistency helps business not disruption.
Why would anybody want eBay and Paypal to split? They work perfectly together and no other platform has anything like this.
I have to ask in the nicest possible way if Northumbrian is a TameBay Alias (or stooge?) for the purpose of questioning the issue at hand?
Funny how he always has first comment on so many issues and then many more as the thread progresses. Does he actually run an eBay business? If so how can he spend so much time on TameBay?
Me thinks connected to TameBay!!!
Carl Icahns right, you yourself regularly post about new payment providers doing something new the latest was Zapp .
Carl Icahn feels that under ebay, paypal cannot not be innovative enough, or grow as it should, and having ebay hold it back is a long term problem for paypal, which is the driving force behind ebay incs growth.
Spit them up, ebay.com focus on eCommerce and growth like they should be, and let paypal focus on payments.
It makes no sense to keep them together, all we have now is a mismatch that leads to decisions no ones happy with.
OK, I take your responce at face value.
Moving on, WHAT EXACTLY is the relationship between TameBay and eBay?
In the interest of transparancy I think this is worth asking.
Lets face it eBay and PayPal are anything but transparant so I (and i’m sure many others too) would love clarification on this point.
*shrugs*
I have been entirely honest. If you don’t like it, that’s up to you.
I’m not going to justify how I make my living, and be lectured on transparency, but an anonymous poster who doesn’t provide any link to a business or website.
I would remind you Tamebay isn’t compulsory. And you might prefer to find your ecommerce information elsewhere.
Dan Wilson
Tamebay – everyday. Must goto site for ecommerce info and comment.
As for northumbrian ‘phantom of the blog’ whatever next – a musical perhaps?
Top blog thanks to Chris and Dan.
Anyone that wants to follow Ichan he now has an FB page
https://www.facebook.com/carlicahn?rf=111884878824030
had to do a little more reading on this.
Ebays fight back page https://bettertogether.ebayinc.com/
I really love this statement by ebay inc “We challenge Mr. Icahn to end his own charade with our shareholders. Let’s focus on honest, accurate debate”
So as a seller, we know ebay cannot debate. We know many things they do are not accurate.
Honesty, Well I think that bridge is burning rapidly.