eBay CEO John Donahoe is taking over for Thompson at PayPal in the interim. eBay is sharing an internal memo that all PayPal employees received from Donahoe today. It says:

As you may already have seen, Yahoo! announced this morning that Scott Thompson is joining the company as CEO, effective immediately. Scott informed me Tuesday afternoon, saying that despite his passion for PayPal, this was an opportunity he felt he had to take. I know I speak for everyone in wishing Scott the best.

Let’s do it, and take this special business to the next level in 2012 and beyond.

Amanda Pires, with PayPal Global Communications, said: “Scott was a terrific leader for the PayPal business over the last seven years, and I know all of PayPal joins me in wishing Scott the best in his new role. He will be missed.”

Just before Christmas, eBay announced the acquisition of BillSafe, a purchase-on-invoice technology provider, which would be rolled into PayPal in Europe.

GSI has built up an impressive business in some respects.  Its clients include Adidas, Bath & Body Works, FAO Schwarz, Godiva, HP, Major League Baseball, Mattel, the NBA, the NFL, PBS, RadioShack, and Zales, among many other noteworthy organizations.

eBay President and CEO John Donahoe stated as a result, “The acquisition of GSI . . . will significantly strengthen our ability to connect buyers and sellers worldwide.  Combined with eBay Marketplaces and PayPal, we believe GSI will enhance our position as the leading strategic global commerce partner of choice for retailers and brands of all sizes.”

eBay should also see an upside in terms of corporate “synergies” (an estimated $60 million by 2013 if the acquisition closes as planned during the third quarter of this year).

There already appears to be a bit of controversy surrounding the purchase, though.  GSI’s financial performance hasn’t been great (its stock was down about 30 percent year-over-year prior to eBay’s big announcement), and eBay’s offer of $2.4 billion (or $29.95 per share) represents a premium of 51 percent over GSI’s value at the end of March 25th.

That’s led some eBay shareholders to back away and send its stock down 2.05 percent so far this morning, even as the Dow and the Nasdaq are up 0.23 percent and 0.19 percent, respectively.

 A donation was made every 24 seconds via eBay Giving Works, the company’s nonprofit fundraising program in the U.S., raising more than $91 a minute for nonprofits. Overall, donations were up 7 percent last year, compared to 2009, and nearly 9 million items were listed for sale, with all or a portion of the sale price donated to a nonprofit, more than double the items listed in 2009.

“Through Giving Works, eBay continues to drive innovation in online philanthropy, enabling millions of people to easily donate to organizations they care about and support people and communities in need,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe.

“eBay Giving Works shows that when you give people the platform and tools to make a difference, they do. People care, and they are willing to give whatever they can to help. Fifty-five million dollars is a lot of money. But what’s most impressive is that in a tough economy, people gave what they could.”

Since the eBay Giving Works program was created in 2003, eBay buyers and sellers have raised $230 million for U.S. and U.K charities—with an average donation of $4.01—and currently lists more than 650,000 charity items on the marketplace, all designated with a blue and yellow ribbon.

Experts thought eBay might report fourth-quarter earnings of $0.47 per share and $2.49 billion in revenue.  Instead, eBay managed to report earnings per share of $0.52 and $2.50 billion in revenue.  (An important fact: that second figure’s up five percent on a year-over-year basis, or ten percent excluding Skype.)

PayPal, traditionally one of eBay’s best-performing divisions, did quite well on its own, too.  eBay indicated that PayPal finished the fourth quarter with 94.4 million active accounts, and that it’s seeing the number climb by about one million per month.

Then here’s one more interesting set of figures: on December 31st of 2010, eBay had $7.8 billion in its cash, cash equivalents, and non-equity investments portfolio, up $2.6 billion (or 50 percent) from the $5.2 billion it had at the end of 2009.  Which is an impressive jump.

Anyway, with regard to all of this, eBay CEO John Donahoe stated, "We delivered a strong fourth quarter and a solid year, driven by our customer focus, commitment to technology-led innovation and our operating discipline, which is enabling us to reinvest in growth.  We are driving strong global growth at PayPal and strengthening our core eBay business.  And we are innovating quickly in areas such as mobile, which is helping to position us at the forefront of trends shaping the future of shopping and payments."

eBay’s stock is now up 2.75 percent in after-hours trading.

Here are the key figures (arguably in increasing order of impressiveness).  First, analysts expected eBay to report $2.16 billion in revenue, and the company instead reported $2.20 billion, which represents a six percent year-over-year increase.  Next, eBay managed to beat estimates by reporting earnings per share of $0.40 instead of $0.38, which works out to an 18 percent year-over-year gain.

Finally, the PayPal division did well to the point that its merchant services businesses has now grown by more than 40 percent year-over-year for three quarters straight.

All this led CEO John Donahoe to correctly observe, "We delivered strong second quarter results, demonstrating the global strength and increasing diversity of our business.  PayPal is strong and getting stronger, building a robust and innovative global footprint serving all of ecommerce."

As for the future, eBay’s outlook is a touch weaker than expected, but Donahoe added, "[O]ur eBay turnaround remains on track, with strong performance in Europe, significant changes in the U.S. and continued improvements to the buying and selling experience.  We continue to focus on delivering strong financial results, managing a healthy balance sheet and making the necessary investments to compete, win and satisfy our customers."

eBay’s stock is up 3.62 percent at the moment in after-hours trading.

Let’s start with the stuff that’s in stone.  eBay reported $2.2 billion in revenue, even though analysts though it would post $2.1 billion and it reported $120.3 million less the same quarter last year.  It came out ahead in terms of earnings per share, too, posting $0.38 instead of the $0.37 analysts forecast.

These results gave president and CEO John Donahoe some room to say, "We’re delivering on our commitments, executing on our plans and operating smarter and faster."

Here’s the problem(s), though.  Eric Savitz wrote, "For Q4, the company sees revenue of $2.2 billion to $2.3 billion; the mid-point at $2.25 billion is a hair below the Street at $2.26 billion. That suggests the company actually see a sequentially flat Q4, which is not a very encouraging view of the holiday selling season.  The non-GAAP EPS guidance for the quarter is for 38-40 cents; that puts the mid-point at 39 cents a penny below the Street at 40 cents."

And shareholders are not at all happy about those numbers, selling enough of eBay’s stock to send it down 5.46 percent so far in after-hours trading.

Jackson, who is the founder and president of Ironfire Capital, wrote, "I believe Whitman deserves every nickel of compensation and stock sale proceeds she got between her joining the company in 1998 and Jan. 1, 2005.  Since then, however, eBay has been in a tailspin with the stock down 59% vs. a Nasdaq decline of 3% over the same period."

During that same timespan, Whitman’s total annual compensation headed in the opposite direction, increasing by about 379 percent and reaching $13.9 million.  Also, eBay shareholders had to pay about $1.8 million for Whitman’s personal aircraft costs in 2006 and 2007.

eBay shareholders can’t exactly breathe a sigh of relief now that Whitman’s gone, either.  Jackson wrote, "Donahoe racked up almost $280,000 worth of personal aircraft expenses in his first nine months on the job in 2008," and later added, "Donahoe made $13.1 million last year for his nine months as CEO, while eBay’s stock dropped 55%, far wider than Nasdaq’s 30% loss in that same period."

Meanwhile, eBay’s stock is down a tiny bit this morning, and a fresh report indicates that a number of Microsoft executives have actually taken pay cuts based on their company’s performance.

A Bloomberg article reported that, at the Shop.org 2009 Annual Summit, "He said he regularly asks himself whether eBay is hampering PayPal’s development."

That may not be just an idle, pass-time-in-the-shower sort of question, either.  It almost sounds like Donahoe’s already got the support of eBay’s board of directors if he decides to make a move, since the CEO then stated, "When I feel the business will be better off separately, we’ll do what we did with Skype."

And eBay’s stock is up 1.13 percent in pre-market trading, which might indicate shareholder approval.

What do you make of this development?  Let us know in the comments section below.

One last thing to note is that Donahoe didn’t hint at any sort of timeframe, so whether he’s thinking about the long term or initiating a sale next month is hard to say.

eBay said it will reach its goal through an ongoing commitment to energy efficiency and conservation along with its continuing investment in renewable energy. It will promote more sustainable behavior tied to travel and personal energy use among its 15,000 employees.

 "eBay continues to demonstrate our long-term commitment to responsible energy use and environmental leadership with our first greenhouse gas emissions reduction target," said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe.

"As a company whose business continues to grow year over year, we recognize that the goal is ambitious, but we’re confident that it is achievable."

The company says it has a relatively small carbon footprint with the majority of its environmental impact coming from energy used by its data centers. In 2010, eBay is set to unveil a new "green" data center that will house more than a third of its global data infrastructure.

Last year, eBay opened a 197,000 square foot office building in San Jose, which features a 650 kW solar installation and has been LEED Gold certified. The company plans a fuel cell strategy for early 2010.
 

Analysts thought eBay would report revenue in the range of $1.94 billion (down from $2.19 billion the same quarter last year).  eBay’s sheets show a sum of $2.02 billion instead.  As for eBay’s earnings per share, $0.34 was the forecast amount (compared to $0.42), and eBay reported $0.39.

CEO John Donahoe also said in a statement, "We . . . moved aggressively to strengthen our portfolio for longer-term growth.  With a macroeconomic environment that remains challenging, we are focused on operating discipline and strong execution of our three-year growth priorities in our core ecommerce and online payments businesses."

Investors seem to be almost overjoyed, sending the eBay’s stock up 8.07 percent so far in after-hours trading.

Still, eBay does face some big challenges, including seller discontent and competition from Amazon.  These issues may have contributed to its auction business declining by 18 percent (as measured in terms of revenue) since the first quarter of 2008.