The New York Times' Brad Stone today broke the news that Skype's founders are eager to buy the company back from current owner eBay.

"Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, have approached several private equity firms and are pooling their own substantial resources to make a bid for the Internet calling service, say several people with knowledge of their plans," Stone writes. "The two men sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, and later received bonus payouts that increased the final price to $3.1 billion."

"Current CEO John Donahoe has said that Skype has no synergies with the rest of eBay, which also owns Web payments service PayPal," writes Reuters' Alexandria Sage. "Donahoe has said the company would do what was best for eBay and Skype, comments that some on Wall Street have taken as an interest in selling."

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