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The sale price is perhaps surprisingly low: just USD1,900 million plus taking over some USD125 million in short term debt.

But that's still a loss: eBay is selling 65% of the company. That values 100% at USD2,750 million. But it paid more than that when it bought the company in 2005. Then it paid USD2,500 million and paid an additional USD500 million in bonuses after a year.

eBay said earlier this year that it planned an IPO for Skype.

But that was before the founders of Skype and eBay got into a battle over who owns the underlying technology.

The new owners say that they think that Skype's new technology, designed to replace the disputed tech, will work just fine and that the litigation will go away.

eBay has an incentive to make that happen: whilst it stands to gain 35% of any profits Skype may make, it's also on the hook for 25% of any losses.

But the new financing kind of keeps it in the family: in the group are Index Ventures - the Geneva-based fund that helped finance the product at launch and Andreessen Horowitz. Get past the ludicrously difficult to say and spell name to say nothing of remember and you'll find eBay board member Marc Andreessen.

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