Wachtell advises eBay as e-commerce giant spins off PayPal business
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is advising eBay on plans to spin off its payments system PayPal into its own independent, publicly traded company.
October 01, 2014 at 07:06 PM
2 minute read
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is advising eBay on plans to spin off its payments system PayPal into its own independent, publicly traded company.
The eBay board had resisted a call made earlier this year by activist investor Carl Icahn to sell the unit, where revenues are growing at almost 20% annually, double the rate of eBay's growth.
With an annual revenue of $7.2bn (£4.5bn) PayPal has become almost as large as the e-commerce site in its own right, which generates $9.9bn (£6.1bn) a year.
The payments system, which is now available in 203 markets across the world, is set to process one billion mobile transactions this year, with the creation of two standalone businesses set to go live at some stage in 2015.
Corporate partner Trevor Norwitz, executive compensation and benefits partner Andrea Wahlquist and corporate counsel Sabastian Niles made up the Wachtell team for eBay.
This isn't the first time Wachtell and Icahn have crossed paths over his investments. Late in 2013, the firm acted in a malpractice case after Icahn filed a suit on behalf of a Texas-based oil refining company he controls, CVR Energy.
Clifford Chance scored a role on a major deal for the e-commerce site in 2005 when it acquired internet phone operator Skype for $2.6bn (£1.4bn). At that time, eBay's regular corporate advisor in the US was Cooley Godward.
PayPal's legal panel in the UK and Ireland is currently made up of just four firms; Allen & Overy, Hogan Lovells, Olswang and Arthur Cox, which provides Irish legal advice.
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