- Though it has rejected Carl Icahn's call for a PayPal spinoff, eBay (EBAY +3%) has been "telling potential recruits for the position of PayPal CEO that it’s considering spinning off the payments business as soon as next year," The Information reports.
- eBay and Icahn engaged in a war of words earlier this year, with the former insisting it needed to hold onto PayPal due to various synergies with Marketplaces, and the latter arguing eBay's board was compromised by conflicts of interest.
- eBay has spiked in response to the report. PayPal, which saw respected division chief David Marcus leave in June for Facebook, almost certainly accounts for over half the company's $68B market cap.