Talk about overpaying!

What if you bought something "in a flurry of excitement", only to learn a few months later that you had overpaid by almost 100%. Ouch, right?

What if that something cost you $2.6 billion dollars?

That's what eBay is saying regarding their 2005 purchase of Internet telephony company Skype. They've now written down the value of Skype by $900 million, and they're setting aside $530 million towards future obligations with Skype shareholders.

Add that up for a total of $1.43 billion dollars.

Despite Skype's worldwide success, these are the problems cited: lower than expected revenue, outages, and the habitual crackling lines and time delays.

The fallout... Skype's founder, Niklas Zennstrom, is stepping down as Skype’s CEO; no permanent successor has been named yet. Bonuses to the ex-CEO and others have been cut by 60 percent. And they're telling shareholders that they valued Skype too highly when they bought it.

Says eBay,

“Skype has not performed as well as we would have hoped. And we are disappointed about the impairment charge. But we still believe Skype to be an extremely valuable asset.”

Tags: Skype, eBay, overpaying

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