PayPal spinoff would slice eBay in half, Gareth Jones

EBay CEO John Donahoe has resisted demands by activist investor Carl Icahn to hive off the payments service, saying PayPal was integral to eBay's business - and vice versa - and a split would not make sense. However SNL Financial analyst Seth Shafer, recently pointed out that PayPal and Braintree racked up some $1.74 billion in net transaction revenue during the second quarter, slightly above eBay’s core marketplace, which posted transaction revenue of $1.72 billion.

{

In fact, Hottovy said PayPal is actually now worth more than both eBay Marketplaces and eBay Enterprises on a sum-of-the-parts basis. PayPal has been eBay’s fastest-growing segment for several quarters now. In the second quarter, it surpassed 150 million active registered accounts and expanded merchant services total payment volumes for the fifth straight quarter. The unit has also proven to be among eBay’s more innovative, with payment processing startup Braintree, acquired by PayPal last September for $800 million, launching a software tool last quarter that allows developers to integrate both Braintree and PayPal in apps in less than 10 minutes What’s more, a majority of PayPal users don’t even access the service through eBay anymore. The payments segment recorded $55.05 billion in total transactions flow last quarter, up 29% year-over-year, according to eBay’s most recent 10-Q filing. Of that, just $14.68 billion was processed on eBay, while the remaining $40.37 billion was processed through other online merchants, some of which were likely direct eBay competitors.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paypal-spinoff-would-slice-ebay-in-half-2014-08-28