The Motley Fool laments the acquisition of PayPal — they were just about to add it to their “Rule Breaker” portfolio!
Initally, we were disappointed that PayPal is being acquired. PayPal was one of the most promising Rule Breakers we’d considered. It is already profitable; it leads an important, emerging, and ultimately immense industry — that of online payment transactions; and, at $20, it had a reasonable valuation.
We felt we had a big winner here! We were just about to pounce when eBay swooped it up, buying the company for $1.5 billion — an 18% premium to last Friday’s price. Thanks a lot, eBay!
Now, on second thought, we’re happy that eBay also saw the value in PayPal, and that eBay — our portfolio’s largest holding — paid a reasonable price.