eBay (EBAY +1.50%) shares rose slightly today as the company released some very strong earnings numbers. The company's PayPal segment was able to grow its revenue by nearly 20%, and its marketplace segment, which many have thought recently would suffer greatly trying to compete with Amazon was able to post double-digit growth as well.
However, the bigger story many investors are watching here comes from well-known activist investor Carl Icahn, who owns a 0.82% stake in eBay, and has come out pushing hard for the company to split off its PayPal business, seen by many as growing at a faster pace than the core marketplace business. eBay's response so far has been a polite "No thanks."
In this video, Motley Fool financial analyst David Hanson tells investors why he thinks this is a deal that, though it won't happen immediately, could happen further down the road. He also sees the company's multiple of 26 times earnings as fair for a company still growing at this pace, and notes several reasons to be interested in this stock today.
