Skype Investor: ?Amount Saved on Firings Wouldn?t Have Been Worth the Phone Call?

Members of Skype's investor syndicate are�adamantly�denying the Sunday Bloomberg story that implied that several Skype executives were fired because private equity firm Silver Lake Partners wanted to save a few bucks paying out the proceeds of the Microsoft-Skype deal. We spoke with one just now who reiterated what other unnamed investors have said in the press this morning: That the decision was 100% new CEO Tony Bates' call. This investor went further to say that there was absolutely zero board discussion about firing these executives,�directly countering Bloomberg's claim that directors were weighing in on who should be fired. And here's the kicker: The executives in question will be�receiving�75% of what they would have made off the sale anyway. The remaining 25% is such a small amount of money that it wouldn't even register on Silver Lake's radar, this investor said. Or as this person put it more bluntly: "It wouldn't have been worth the time to make the phone call, not to mention Tony would have told them to fuck off anyway."

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