Deutsche Bank: eBay Could Attract Buyers, Activists

EBay Inc EBAY and its PayPal unit each face rising headwinds and might attract buyout artists and activist shareholders, an analyst said Thursday.

But "worse is better" in the view of Deutsche Bank's Ross Sandler, who said once the PayPal spin off is completed in the second half of 2015, an acquisition of one or both the resulting companies "becomes more likely."

Activist investor Carl Icahn called off his battle with eBay in April, gaining a seat on its board but appearing at the time to lose a bid to force eBay to divest PayPal.

But Sandler thinks activist investor pressure on either or both eBay and PayPal could resurface in the foreseeable future.

"As we've seen in other activist situations, buybacks and asset divestitures could increasingly surface as a catalyst for shares," Sandler said.

EBay shares fell more than 6 percent Thursday after the company cut its outlook, and Sandler sees "another leg down" coming for the company's projections in the first half of 2015.

In the meantime the upcoming spinoff of PayPal and a relatively low stock price "could support shares," according to Sandler, who maintained a Hold rating but cut his target to $53 from $57.

EBay is facing slower growth because of competition from both Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT, according to FBN's Shebly Seyrafi, who maintained a Hold rating Thursday and cut his target to $55 from $65.

Third-quarter results also included lingering effects of both a hack attack in May and search engine changes by Google Inc GOOGL earlier this year according to Seyrafi, who also cited a rapid slowdown in U.S. retail sales.

Likewise Canaccord's Michael Graham maintained a Hold rating and cut his target to $52 from $57 .

But Keefe Bruyette's Sanjay Sakhrani said eBay's PayPal unit posted "fairly resilient trends" in the recent period, and the company is "engaging in the right path toward trying to re-spark growth" in its online sales business.

"There is a fair amount of negativity baked into the shares and would be buyers on any weakness," Sakhrani said while maintaining a Buy rating and $65 target.

EBay traded recently at $47.49 per share, down $2.75.