Icahn swaps eBay stake for PayPal

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has swapped his entire equity stake in e-commerce site eBay Inc for the same number of shares in PayPal Holdings Inc.

According to Reuters, the stake swap was made in the third quarter

According to the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Icahn sold his stake of 46.3 million shares in eBay and reported the same number of shares in PayPal which completed its spinoff from eBay in mid-July.

Icahn, whose PayPal stake as of 30 September stood at 3.8 per cent of the company, had pushed for eBay to spin off PayPal last year and had managed to get a board represenation at PayPal for Icahn Capital managing director Jonathan Christodoro.

Icahn finally gave up on the spinoff call in April 2014, though, eBay directors and executives changed their position on the split in June last year after a six-month internal study of the payments landscape.

Icahn, who is known for acquiring stakes in companies and pushing for management changes and divestment, also disclosed that he took a 1.36 million share stake in American International Group Inc in the third quarter, and then pressured the insurer to split into three companies.