Carl Icahn: This Is Not About Selling eBay

eBay Inc EBAY announced on Wednesday that it’ll be laying off 2,400 employees and it has reached an agreement with Icahn Enterprises LPIEP, Carl Icahn, by appointing Icahn’s pick Jonathan Christodoro to its board and ensuring that it will limit PayPal’s corporate defences once PayPal is spunoff. Icahn was on CNBC to talk about eBay’s sudden change of heart.

“I believe companies owe their shareholders the right to decide if they are going to be bought or sold,” Icahn said. “I mean, I don’t believe in micromanaging. The reason I think we have been very successful over the years is we don’t micromanage when we get on boards or even when we control companies except the big picture items such as selling or buying a company, such as making a major acquisition and this is what shareholders as owners have a right to do.”

Icahn thinks that eBay shares aren’t up today “on the earnings. That’s my belief it’s up because of this because they [eBay’s management] have acted very responsibly.”

This Is About Corporate Governance

“Let’s make it clear, at this point, this is just real good corporate governance,” Icahn said. “ I am not doing anything, the company definitely is doing nothing about seeing a company being sold because that would hurt the tax benefits…and that’s not the only reason they are not doing it, they have other reasons probably to not do it at this time.”

He continued, “ So, we have representation on the board, but I will say to you, that that’s not what this is about, this is not about ‘hey we are going out and selling eBay’, like the board is saying that, what this is about is just [damn good] corporate governance.”