Microsoft offers to buy Skype

Microsoft is in talks to buy internet phone service Skype, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

According to the paper, the deal could be worth as much as $8.5bn (£5.2bn), which would make it Microsoft’s largest acquisition.

Both Microsoft and Skype have declined to comment on the story.

Luxembourg-based Skype has 663 million global users. In August last year it announced plans for a share flotation, but this was subsequently put on hold.

Internet auction house eBay bought Skype for $2.6bn in 2006, before selling 70% of it in 2009 for $2bn.

Skype is now majority-owned by a group of investors, led by private equity firms Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz.
Source: BBC