eBay agreed to sell a majority stake of Skype to a consortium of private investors lead by Silver Lake Partners. (WSJ: EBay CEO: Skype Investors “Confident” of Work-Around Software, get it from Google if necessary).
Silver lake is not new to me. Because they bought Seagate, and my former employer (hint: a major CAD/PLM software company) and made money from both (WSJ: Silver Lake’s Skype Deal Resembles Its Seagate Investment). See more of their investments here.
One interesting point is, as shown in the first WSJ article, both eBay and the new investors are confident of work-around software to get around the (license of) software still owned by Skype founders.
I am not a heavy Skype user, but I do use it from time to time when the iTalkBB stopped working. Hope the work-around works. It looks like Silver Lake is continuing to take in money. A boom sign of private equity at this time.