Icahn Swaps eBay Shares For PayPal Stake

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the billionaire activist investor sold his 46.3 million shares in the e-commerce platform in exchange of snagging the same number of shares in the digital payments platform, Reuters reported. Prior to eBay’s spinoff from PayPal, Icahn’s stake ownership in eBay was at 3.8 percent.

ZDNet said Icahn’s move was no longer surprising, even to the newbie investors, as he has been publicly vocal about his support in spinning off the two businesses. He also published a number of letters calling out eBay’s management for their alleged hampering of the company’s growth for personal gain. Moreover, Icahn has long argued that the spinoff was a good move for the investors to guarantee shareholder value given the wide disparity between the two companies’ earnings and revenue.

Although eBay executives did not like the idea of a spinoff, it became a reality following Apple Pay’s debut in the market early this year, PYMNTS.com wrote.