Following up and tracking the success of deals some years on is not always a strong suit for corporate dealmakers - often it's on to the next deal before the ink is dry, with little need for the nostalgia of looking back.
Accountants, however, have no such luxury, and there is a certain discipline to tracking over time how good your deals really are. With that in mind, I note Ebay's $1.4B writedown of its Skype acquisition, accompanied by the departure of Niklas Zennstrom and the announcement that the earnout in the deal had only been one-third met. With the original purchase price of $2.6B and about $500M in earnout money, the charge represents nearly 50% of deal value.
Ebay may have some internal measures that indicate the deal was a success for strategic reasons, but by any objective outside view it was a bust. I hate to say I told you so, but . . .
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