Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom has stepped down as CEO, and eBay is sending Skype President Henry Gomez back home to eBay. In addition, eBay is taking a $1.4 billion charge to reflect the impairment of goodwill arising from the acquisition.

eBay has paid $530 million to settle all of its future obligations under the earn-out agreement signed with certain Skype shareholders when eBay acquired Skype in 2005. The earn-out agreement provided for payments of up to $1.7 billion based upon specific active user, revenue and gross profit targets that were to be achieved in 2008 and the first half of 2009. eBay's announcement stated, "eBay believes that the €375 million payment is reasonable given the progress and anticipated rapid growth of Skypes active user base."

Zennstrom will become non-executive chairman of the Skype Board of Directors. Michael van Swaaij, eBay's Chief Strategy Officer, will become acting CEO until a permanent successor is found. Skype's President Henry Gomez will return to eBay as Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs, reporting to President and CEO Meg Whitman.

The Wall Street Journal summed up reaction to the news: "Analysts were so uniformly negative at the time of eBay's acquisition of Skype that the news yesterday was greeted with shrugs."

eBay's timing of the deal was likely deliberate to get the negative news out before it releases third-quarter earnings on October 17th.

See also, "Skype Tops eBay's History of Bad Acquisitions," on the AuctionBytes blog, and leave a comment with your own reaction to the news:
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2007/10/1191292875.html