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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

EBay follows Icahn's advice, plans PayPal spinoff in 2015, (NASDAQ: EBAY)

EBay Inc plans to spin off its PayPal unit next year, bowing to activist investor Carl Icahn's argument that the move would free the fast-growing payments business to compete more fiercely in the competitive mobile payments market.The move, announced on Tuesday, is an about-face for eBay's top leadership, including Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, who publicly resisted Icahn's push earlier this year and led a campaign to convince investors that eBay and PayPal should remain together.EBay's shares jumped as much as 8.8 percent after the announcement. By mid-afternoon, the stock was up 7.8 percent to $56.79.Donahoe as well as Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan will step down after the spinoff in the second half of 2015, but were expected to serve on the boards of one or both companies after the split. EBay will spin off PayPal as a publicly traded company in a transaction that will be tax-free to shareholders.

eBay Inc., is a global technology company. The Company enables commerce through three reportable segments: Marketplaces, Payments, and GSI. Shares of EBAY traded higher by 7.54% or $3.97/share to $56.63. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $48.06 and as high as $59.70. On average, 12375400 shares of EBAY exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 76824392.



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