Reports in the national press say that the founder, Craig Newmark, and CEO, Jim Buckmaster, have moved to dilute eBays holding in Craiglist, the massively successful classified listings website which is possible worth billions. EBay helped out in 2004 in a deal meant to guarantee the sole of the listings site after an unnamed employee wanted to sell up. Now Newmark and Buckminster want to issue new shares to dilute eBay by more than 10%.
It is strange as Newmark always insists he is not interested in money. Mind you, not many people run a multi-billion dollar business with only 25 people letting the customers take the strain. It is just another reminder of why everyone has to make sure that the shareholder agreements protect all. Of course, if Craiglist was a UK registered company we could look at the records in Companies House and identify the shareholder who had sold and how the share structure was changing. Which is why we can produce Equity Fingerprint, the business plan resource, in the UK but only in the USA after the company has gone public or has been taken over in a deal that goes public.
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