Mark Evans

Skype: Takeover Rumors Refuse to Go Away

There's yet another report - this time in The Independent - that it's only a matter of time before Skype is acquired. The story cites the $3-billion offer from News Corp. that Robert Cringely wrote about last week, and states “sources in the telecoms industry” expect Skype will be taken over soon. Okay, let's assume the News Corp. offer actually happened. Other than owing Cringely a big-time apology, many of us would also have to ask why the deal wasn't consummated right away. With a modest $20-million of venture capital invested in Skype, the News Corp. deal would have been a Super Bowl, World Series and Stanley Cup championship rolled into one. Co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis would have been hailed as the Kings of VOIP, while investors such as Tim Draper and Howard Hartenbaum would be widely lauded and envied for their intelligence and insight. So why hasn't a deal happened yet? Perhaps News Corp. did make an offer but nowhere near the $3-billion cited by Cringely. Maybe the idea of doing a deal with News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch is unpalatable, although Skype's investors would have quickly come up with three billion reasons to do a deal with the devil. Maybe Skype really believes it's worth a lot more than the $1-billion price tag thrown out by Tim Draper during a Q&A at the recent AlwaysOn conference. Or perhaps Skype believes it has a bigger cause, and that getting taken out now would be a premature conclusion to an amazing, disruptive ride. Maybe Skype will be buoyed by Baidu's spectacular IPO, and sell off a small stake rather than the whole enchillada - thereby offering investors liquidity while giving Zennstrom and Friis Sergey Brin/Larry Page-like control of the company. Looking at the numbers, a quick-thinking investment banker could easily use Baidu's IPO to make a $3-billion offer for Skype look like a bargain. Baidu is now valued at $3.92-billion - or more than 300 times its 2004 revenue of $14.9-million. It has been rumored Skype has sales of about $20-million, along with 45 million registered users and 1.7 million premium service customers. If Baidu can pull off a blow-out IPO and leave lots of money on the table while doing it, it is far-fetched to suggest Skype could wow the market as well? What's perhaps as interesting from an investment perspective is there's way more buzz about Skype than Vonage these days, which is a contrast to a few months ago when a Vonage sale or IPO was widely expected.