Business

Icahn abandons push for eBay to sell PayPal

It’s the triumph of the nerds.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen emerged as the big winner in the bruising battle with activist investor Carl Icahn over the fate of online auction company eBay.

Icahn backed off his push for eBay to spin off payment service PayPal and withdrew his proposal to put two nominees on the board. In exchange, eBay named David Dorman as an independent director.

Ebay also agreed to allow Dorman and other directors to share confidential information with Icahn, so long as he keeps it private.

While eBay suggested that Dorman was Icahn’s pick, Andreessen seemed positively giddy about it.

“I am tickled pink to welcome my old friend David Dorman to the eBay board! He’ll be an outstanding independent director for a great company,” Andreessen tweeted Thursday.

EBay CEO John Donahoe declared the truce with Icahn a “victory” for eBay shareholders.

It’s also a win for Andreessen, who had been the main target of Icahn’s campaign, along with fellow billionaire entrepreneur Scott Cook. Icahn had called out both eBay directors by name, alleging various conflicts of interest.

Icahn accused Andreessen of engaging in transactions that are “directly competing with eBay,” including flipping Skype.

EBay sold a majority stake in Skype to a group of investors, including Andreessen, for $1.9 billion in 2009.

The group sold Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billion just 18 months later.

Andreessen had returned fire, dismissing Icahn as a “conspiracy theorist” who,. among other things, drove airline TWA into the ground.

Ultimately, Icahn didn’t have support of eBay’s top shareholders, an advisor to the proxy battle told The Post. EBay, meanwhile, wanted to avoid the cost and distraction of a board battle.

“The investors were not signing up to all his [Icahn’s] ideas, but going through a contest is expensive and time consuming,” this person said.

Shareholders were set to vote on the candidates at eBay’s annual investor meeting on May 13.

During his months-long campaign, Icahn also had some choice words for CEO Donahoe, saying he is “completely asleep or, even worse, either naïve or willingly blind to lapses by the board.”

Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Donahoe credited JPMorgan banker Jimmy Lee for brokering the peace pact.

“’Look John, I think you and Carl should spend more time together,’” Donahoe said Lee told him.

“And we did over the weekend. And we talked repeatedly on the phone.”