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PayPal Announces Intent To IPO
seek31337 was the first to write to us with the word-direct-from-the-mouth that PayPal has announced its intention to IPO. Not much other details, but interesting nonetheless.
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I wonder if I can buy shares using my PayPal account?
Perhaps Paypal is pursuing a plan that simply puts more pennies in the principals' pockets?
Prefectly possible. Prescient point!
It always amazes me how investors seem interested in tiny little companies that have a neat idea, but if it ever really takes off could be entirely duplicated by a larger, more well known company, do it all for "free" (ie: ads, having an account, whatever) and not even look back twice at the dark smudge they just ran over.
Far from being your average "no value, pointless" dot com, PayPal serves a purpose to users of On-line auctions. I remember the days of yore when I had to walk about 20 miles ;) to go buy a money order because nobody wants to accept a check on-line (are u serious? Do u know what kind of people use the net LOL)
Paypal takes all the extra steps out of this process and to those who's tech skills aren't enough for them to wade through Billpoints sign-up process, PayPal is the DE FACTO online payment service. Just do a quick check on eBAY for the number of auctions that only accept payment through paypal.
Good luck with this IPO. I'll buy some shares.
You forgot another reason why companies go public. To appease and put the "golden handcuffs" on the employees, not to mention trying to attract top-notch potential employees. Having worked for several dot-coms in the last few years I can say that there isn't that much company loyalty out there. Many employees stay at companies hoping to make a lot of money off of their stock options.
Now in the last year, a lot of this has changed and more people are sticking around at companies for fear of not getting another job, but there are still a lot of people out there hoping to "strike it rich" off of stock options and you never will without going public.
Also, at one company that I was at that was on the verge of an IPO increased head count by 30-40% two weeks prior to the IPO. This was a few years ago when finding good employees was quite a battle. Again, probably not as much of a concern for companies these days.
PayPal provides services like a bank, and can operate offshore accounts and stuff (all you need is a credit card and a paypal account in Moscow or wherever you are) and should be regulated like a bank before it goes all IPOing on our ass.
see here.
we need to figure out what kind of business it is before we buy shares of it.
Goat sex free since 2001
However, I've had the pleasure of working closely with many of PayPal's senior management over the past two years, back since they merged with X.com. I can tell you three very important things:
1. The P2P space is actually a loss leader. Most of their profit is made in the B2B and B2C space - not pure P2P as most people believe. They do very well in these spaces and recent analysts predict that their revenue was between $80 and $100mil last year. That's a heck of a lot better than most of the not-coms we've seen over the past several years.
2. They have an incredibly intelligent, dedicated and savvy staff that understands their market and industry.
3. They have a business model that works.
In my opinion, these three items equal success.
I love their service and I enjoy working with the company. If I didn't enjoy my current job so much, I'd probably apply for a job with them.
(Is it considered part of the pre-IPO quiet period to be featured on a nationial television special?)
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Yahoo! should buy PayPal and integrate it into their Yahoo! Store and Auctions infrastructure. Their existing PayDirect service was too late getting into the game, ditch it and convert its users to PayPal. The cut the credit card companies normally get for Store purchases could flow to Yahoo! when payments are made from a cash-positive PayPal account. The additional users from Yahoo!'s existing services plus advertising would be a big boost to PayPal. And no need for an incredibly poorly timed IPO. Win-win situation.
;-).
Credit my consulting fee to my PayPal account, please
I have a paypal debit/mastercard card and I must say I absolutely love it. I could get a check card from my bank but they don't offer me 1.5% cashback like paypal does and I would hate to lose my check card. With the paypal card I can easily keep at least 120-180 in my account at all times to pay for stuff when I don't want to use real cash.
I'm definitely going to buy a few shares from them
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/paypal.htm l
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/23/pay _p al/
Paypal victim site: http://chips.dyndns.org/~xcomvic/
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,26 05 840,00.html
etc etc etc ... One scam goes like this : The victim sells an item, are paid via paypal -- they ship the item, once the scam artists has recieved it, they can force the CC company to reverse the charge because theres no signature ... Paypal is debited the money, and paypal *TAKES THE MONEY FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT* without your authorization. A buddy off mine lost 350$ AND his DX7 keyboard this way ... fuck that
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Please folks, before you get over exited, I would consider that there is some panic on PayPals side involved in going for IPO, getting new capital in and expand RAPIDLY before others catch up. PayPal used to be pretty unique and the banks (even if Deutsche Bank was one of the original investors), especially big banking, pretty much stayed away from them. Why did the banks do that? They thought a technology driven company like Paypal (and DigiCash (today known as eCash Technologies), CyberCash(aquired by VeriSign and others), GlobeSET(acquired by Trintech) and many more ...) never posed a threat to the big banks. Then Paypal started to do something you shall not do . Disintermediate the banks. Now the banks think, wow, they are stealing customers from us. So there are various new initiatives on their way. Visa 3-D Secure ( See here), which is _first_ aimed to eliminate consumer fraud but has extensions in the protocol for later P2P use, NACHA has several initiatives on the way: ISAP which is again _first_ an internet payment protocol but will carry into P2P later, Project Action which will aim directly at the eBay Payments of PayPal. So they are afraid. They are afraid for a good reason. They need money to compete (and, according to rumours they are pretty much running out of it). So an IPO is a logical step. Maybe they will even make it in these difficult times ...
TAKES THE MONEY FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT* without your authorization
1. You don't grant access to your account on a transaction-by-transaction basis; you grant access to your account PERIOD. I'm sorry if your buddy didn't understand this fact of banking. Kind of an expensive way to learn it; clearly you've learned from his mistakes.
2. If someone defrauds you, you prosecute them. I'm sorry if your buddy's DX7 keyboard and his $350 weren't worth his time; that was his choice. It's not PayPal's problem if you are defrauded; it's your problem.
I use PayPal. I know the risks. If they foul up my account I will pursue fraud charges against them. If someone else rips me off, I'll pursue fraud charges against THEM. Everybody needs a hobby, and from time to time it becomes my hobby to make people responsible for their actions.
The only reason a company would IPO in this environment is they can't get cash any other way.
This is the only, and I mean only .com-ish type company I'd ever invest in.... because c'mon folks, they are a market leader of a required infrastructure type website/system that the internet needs.... where would ebay be without this?
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG