EBay Reiterates Opposition to Icahn Proposals

   By Ben Fox Rubin 
 

EBay Inc. reiterated its opposition to activist investor Carl Icahn's effort to break up the e-commerce company, saying its board unanimously recommends shareholder vote against Mr. Icahn's board nominees and break-up proposal.

Since taking a roughly 2% stake in eBay, Mr. Icahn has aggressively pushed for a spinoff of the company's payment service PayPal, nominated two representatives to the board and questioned board members' objectivity. He said eBay is stifling PayPal's growth and hurting its competitiveness against current and potential rivals, including Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

But earlier this month, Mr. Icahn scaled back his ambitions on spinning off the business, saying he would be satisfied with a partial sale of PayPal to the public, allowing eBay to maintain majority control of PayPal.

"We have evaluated carefully Mr. Icahn's proposal to spin off PayPal," eBay's leadership said in a shareholder letter ahead of its May 13 annual meeting. "We do not support it. Mr. Icahn's proposal is not a new idea, and Mr. Icahn himself recently backed away from supporting his own proposal."

While Mr. Icahn is moving away from his spinoff request, his proposal to separate the unit and his two nominees for the board will stay on the ballot at eBay's annual shareholder meeting.

A representative for Mr. Icahn wasn't immediately available for comment.

Write to Ben Fox Rubin at [e-mail]

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