PayPal has outgrown the warm embrace of its parent eBay. Ownership by the online merchant provided rich soil for the payment system to thrive. But PayPal is now mature enough to grow faster on its own. The activist investor Carl C. Icahn has a point when he says that splitting eBay in two â€" as first suggested by Breakingviews in 2008 â€" would make investors about 15 percent richer.
EBay’s users and online auctions have helped PayPal grow. That’s important, because payment networks become more useful for both buyers and sellers the larger they become. The most recent example was mobile. In 2010, 80 percent of PayPal’s nascent mobile business came from eBay apps. Three years later, PayPal’s mobile payments volume had increased more than fortyfold, to $27 billion.
EBay argues that separating the two would rip PayPal from this rich source of business. It points out that 30 percent of new PayPal users come from eBay. If anything, though, this shows that PayPal has grown too big for its parent. A majority of its new customers come from outside eBay’s walls. Giving the unit independence might attract even more. Retailers like Amazon might be more willing to work with PayPal if it weren’t owned by an e-commerce rival.
Moreover, investors would probably pay to own a chunk of a company growing about 20 percent a year in the hot area of e-payments. The division should generate about $2 billion this year of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Put on the same multiple as Visa and MasterCard, it would be worth about $30 billion. That’s conservative, as PayPal should grow faster, and could attract a premium.
EBay’s auction business is worth about $50 billion and online commerce services for other companies another $1 billion, according to research by Jefferies. Add the company’s $4 billion of net cash, and the company’s parts are worth at least $85 billion, or 15 percent more than its current market value.
EBay and its chief executive, John Donahoe, resist the idea, viewing a split as a risky change to two business units that have a loving and symbiotic relationship. Mr. Icahn’s heated attack on conflicts of interest among board members, and his complaint that Mr. Donahoe is willfully blind to them, is unlikely to change their minds. But the cooler logic of arithmetic may prove harder to resist.
Robert Cyran is a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.
