Ebay and Icahn New Standstill Agreement

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Jan 22, 2015

Since Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) took a stake in Ebay (EBAY, Financial) his has been pressing the firm to spin-off paypal, change in the board room, and even a sale of the whole company. Icahn went after board members mainly Marc Andreessen who firm made massive profits from buying skpe from Ebay for $2.75 billion and selling its to Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) for over $8.0 billion. This back an forth between Icahn and Andreessen lead to Him and two other board members stepping down. Even after Ebay said it wont spin-off paypal over and over. When on to announce a spin-off after Apple (AAPL, Financial) announced Applepay. Ebay and Icahn throughout 2014 had two agreements between them that fell apart multiple times. Now a new standstill agreement has been announced with Icahn getting to board seats.

Details of Ebay's and Icahn's Standstill Agreement

Ebay and Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) of Icahn Enterprises (IEP, Financial) have today announced a new standstill agreement. In this new agreement Perry Traquania and Frank Yearly.

The CEO John Donahoe said on the three new board members in a statement. "Their appointments are the result of significant effort by the nominating committee over the last several months to find talented new directors who will contribute valuable expertise to eBay and PayPal as we create two best-in-class boards,"

Perry Traquania Ebay's new board member was the former CEO and chairman of Wellington Management, which is one of the largest management firms with $900 billion of assets under management. Frank Yearly is the co-founder and executive chairman of CamberView Partners which is in the business of providing investor-led advice to corporate boardrooms.

As part of the agreement, eBay will appoint Johnathan Christodora to the board. With him having the abilitiy to transfer to the board of paypal after being spin-off. Ebay will also agree to adopting certain corporate governance provisions to be added to Paypal's charter documents.

John Donahoe commenting on the standstill agreements said. "This agreement reflects our alignment on separation and our shared belief in the benefits of avoiding distractions. We look forward to contributions of all of our directors as we work to set up eBay and PayPal for success and create strong boards for each of the new companies.”

Ebay now has a board of 15 members with 13 being indepent board members. Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) got everything he wanted out of Ebay an even so changes to paypal governance.

Carl Icahn (Trades, Portfolio) Letter, http://www.gurufocus.com/news/309181