Activist investor Carl Icahn sells eBay shares in favor of PayPal

Activist investor Carl Icahn who has been vocal in asking eBay to split with PayPal previously was reported to have swapped his entire stake in eBay with PayPal. According to a regulatory filing released by the commissioner, Icahn has swapped his stake in eBay for an equal number of shares in PayPal.

Channel News Asia reported that the move saw Icahn sold all of his 46.3 million shares in eBay for an undisclosed amount. The move caught many analysts by surprise as he has been pushing for a spinoff between eBay and PayPal until late April last year when he backed down from the campaign as directors in both companies agreed not to split, and ignore the critic.

Based on the filing, Icahn now owns 3.8 percent of PayPal as of September 30 based on the number of shares bought.

PayPal, which begins its trading prior to the spinoff by eBay in July on the New York Stock Exchange as reported by Yahoo News.

eBay split from PayPal not long after Icahn backed down from pressuring the company using his firm's director, Jonathan Christodoro.

According to eBay representative during that time, the company split from PayPal after the company conducted a six-month long internal study regarding the prospect and future of payment landscape in the world.

Icahn, who is known for purchasing lots of stakes in a company and turning the management of the company around had done a similar thing to lots of other companies.

According to CNBC, Icahn, who is currently holding 1.36 million shares in American International Group (AIG) is currently pressuring the insurance company to split.

Icahn wants the company to split to three different companies as the company is deemed as "too big to succeed".

He was reported to have written a personal letter to CEO of AIG, Peter Hancock in late October this year requesting the company to split.

Icahn did not disclose on the amount of investment he had made to the company so far. However, the investor told his tweeter followers that he is now holding a large stake in the company and thus he owns the right to shake up the management.

After splitting, PayPal and eBay have both ventures into more lucrative business. However, PayPal is currently doing better with its increasing amount of users especially for its peer-to-peer payment system using an app called Venmo.

Venmo was reported to have done $2.1 billion worth of transaction by the end of the third-quarter of 2015.