"eBay Gets Short Shrift"
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
7/12/2006 9:26 AM EDT
"Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay (EBAY - commentary - Cramer's Take), goes to Sun Valley.
That's typical isn't it? I see her as being the quintessential ride-the-wave exec who has done pretty much everything wrong imaginable, not growing the brand and buying something that can't be monetized (and might never be).
And of course she goes to Sun Valley, Idaho, for Allen & Co.'s annual Hollywood-meets-Wall-Street conference there.
Any executive involved in a crisis -- and eBay is in crisis -- should be hands-on right now, not glad-handing and hobnobbing. Now I know that there are people who believe that these conferences are actually productive, great to make deals, terrific to talk to the "right" people.
I believe that if I were Whitman I would actually made a statement about why this isn't the time to leave to go to have a good time at Sun Valley.
Now, let's talk about eBay. There are tons of puts being bought on eBay and many people are betting against the darned thing. I believe that makes sense, maybe not in the short term, where the short side is crowded, but on any lift.
I believe that eBay is following the Amazon (AMZN - commentary - Cramer's Take) trajectory of going proprietary to commodity -- with the Skype acquisition being the ultimate commodity. I also believe that the novelty of eBay has worn off and that the regular online sellers could easily migrate to other sites. Amazon used to be a company with a gigantic market cap. It now has a market cap of only $14 billion. Does it make sense that eBay, with its slowing growth rate, should get a 30 multiple on earnings and a $40 billion market cap?
I just believe that it would be reasonable to see the market cap be reduced dramatically. It simply no longer deserves the premium, and doesn't deserve the market cap.
And it ought to look at the top for what is wrong, and not these lesser divisions like PayPal. "
(in
www.realmoney.com)