It was exactly what Carl Icahn envisioned should happen: EBay and PayPal will go their separate ways with two different CEOs, as our Heather Somerville reported.
This will happen in the second half of 2015, according to eBay, which announced the news Tuesday. The firm s stock was up almost 8 percent midday off the news.
The announcement comes months after eBay settled its proxy fight with Icahn, the shareholder activist and sometimes corporate raider, who pressured the company to spin off PayPal.
I wrote that Silicon Valley shouldn t let short-term investors like Carl Icahn run the show. He s like a virus, Rob Enderle, the tech industry analyst, told me then.
Icahn argued that the combined company was hampering PayPal particularly in the area of mobile payments. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also thought spinning off the payment company, which he co-founded, was a good idea. In the end, Icahn backed off, kept his stake in the company and agreed to support management.
On Tuesday, Icahn said in a statement that the decision to separate was perhaps a little later than they should have, but earlier than we expected.
And in statements to Recode, Donahoe said the company s decision was thought out. I did not want to make an important decision in a reactive way based on short-term events, he said.
This is why you follow Carl Icahn, writes Business Insider s Myles Udland in a post.
Above: Carl Icahn (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
