Carl Icahn Blames eBay Inc (EBAY)’s CEO For Stealing $5 Billion

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s up almost 2.5% for the last 5 days, close to the price of $51.5, but it’s almost 6.5% down year to date. So, the company’s pretty much busted in terms of pressures from competition and investors. To make sure that everybody gets what deserves, Carl Icahn tossed a $5 billion dollar stone in John Donahoe, according to Bloomberg.

“He [John Donahoe] went in. I mean, how does a guy get away with it? As he leaves he told Now York Post ‘I’m very pleased with what I’ve accomplished at eBay’ and sure he’s pleased. You’d be pleased too if you could steal $5 billion. He took away $5 billion from the shareholders and he got away with it,” said Carl Icahn.

There’re no facts to prove or disprove the accusation, which is most probably related to eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) spinning off PayPal. The proposal to unload its stake in the payment company was made in October 2010. So, 4 years of thinking can be considered a bit too much since it was practically obvious that PayPal can no longer live on eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s back to get more customers and investments. However, it’s interesting to understand from what facts the activist investor came up with the $5 billion number.

All in all, presuming John Donahoe is to blame for the fact that eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) remained undervalued, relatively speaking, this is not actually theft as the CEO did not pocket more than his salary. This being the fact, it’s serious mismanagement to allow opportunities just pass by just to feed your lust for a relatively small compensation. In any case, we don’t judge and this is just an exercise of judgement.

So, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) could have been better off, but as that wasn’t the case, all the hopes are on Devin Wenig to work his magic into turning the company around.

Disclosure: none
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