Online auction site eBay has agreed to sell the majority of internet phone company Skype for about $2bn (£1.2bn).

Skype is to be majority-owned by a group of private investors, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and private equity firms.

EBay will keep a 35% stake in the firm, which it has been trying to sell for some time. It has said that Skype had “limited synergies” with it.

The deal values Skype at $2.75bn. EBay bought Skype for $2.6bn in 2005.

The new owners are Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures - which originally invested in Skype - as well as private equity firm Silver Lake and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

They will pay $1.9bn in cash, and give a $125m note to eBay, meaning that it promises to pay that amount on demand or at an agreed time.

For sale

Earlier this year, eBay had said that it planned to spin off Skype and list its shares in the first half of 2010, an announcement many took as a signal that the firm was for sale.

Ebay wrote down the value of the firm to $1.2bn a year after it was taken over.

Including payouts to Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who founded Skype in 2003, eBay paid over $3bn for the company.

Skype’s software lets computer and mobile phone users talk to each other for free and make cut-price calls to mobiles and landlines.

Unlike traditional mobile calls, which are transmitted over a cellular network, Skype turns your voice into data and sends it over the internet.

Since being acquired, the number of registered Skype users has risen to 405 million from 53 million, though free user-to-user calls still dominate the service.

The deal should be finalised by the last three months of the year

The iPhone could be available next year on wireless carriers such as Verizon, an analyst predicts.

Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T to offer the iPhone may end within the year, according to a prediction from financial analyst Gene Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray.

The iPhone could be available next year on wireless carriers such as Verizon, an analyst predicts.

If Munster is correct, opening up the iPhone to other carriers in the U.S. could be a boon for Apple, which would likely see iPhone sales go through the roof. On the flipside, if this prediction were to come true, it would likely mean very bad news for AT&T, which has relied heavily on the iPhone to boost its own wireless sales and revenue.

Munster noted recently in his published research that Apple has been moving away from exclusive deals in other countries, according to AppleInsider. Specifically, in France the company ended an exclusive deal with Orange and opened up the device to multiple carriers. Munster said the change pushed the iPhone’s marketshare upward to about 40 percent in France. In the U.S., where the iPhone is exclusively offered through AT&T, the iPhone has a marketshare in the teens.

There are several other countries where Apple has a multi-carrier model. In fact, its most recent deal with China Unicom to bring the iPhone to China is also not exclusive. Apple declined to discuss which carriers it might be in talks with, but analyst firms such as Piper Jaffray expect Apple to sell more than 3 million iPhone units in China next year.

Details of Apple’s relationship with AT&T have never been made public. But many people have speculated that the exclusivity contract with AT&T would last at most five years from when the first iPhone hit the market in 2007. This would mean that AT&T would have exclusive rights to the iPhone until around 2012.

There have been reports more recently that AT&T has continued its negotiations with Apple to keep the iPhone exclusive through at least 2011.

Still, rumors have circulated that Verizon Wireless is also talking to Apple about getting the iPhone on its network. Verizon executives have hinted that some kind of Apple device will likely operate on its new 4G wireless network, which is expected to launch commercially next year. But what’s been less clear is whether or not a 3G iPhone will operate over Verizon’s network.

Verizon Wireless is currently the largest wireless operator in the country. And it has consistently won accolades for solid performance on its network. But because its current 3G wireless network is based on CDMA technology rather than GSM, which is what AT&T and most other carriers around the world use, offering the device on Verizon’s network would require an additional radio to be added to the device.

While this is not a trivial task for Apple, the opportunity to offer the iPhone to Verizon’s millions of potential new subscribers would likely provide a big incentive to redesign the iPhone’s radio technology.

As Apple’s iPhones grow in popularity, there are strong indications that opening the device up to other carriers in the U.S., such as Verizon, would greatly boost iPhone sales and market share. The company’s latest phone, the iPhone 3GS introduced in June, is likely the company’s most popular device. Munster even noted in his report that the new iPhone “seems to have exceeded Apple’s internal expectations.”

The timing in the U.S. could also be right to end the exclusivity deal with AT&T as Congress, the Department of Justice, and regulators at the Federal Communications Commission look into the fairness of such exclusive deals. Opening the device up to other carriers could help score points with regulators and potentially end some of these investigations.

But ending its exclusive deal with Apple could spell big trouble for AT&T. For one, the iPhone has helped AT&T attract new customers. About 40 percent of AT&T’s 10 million iPhone customers switched to AT&T from another carrier, the company has said.

But more importantly, the iPhone has helped AT&T keep existing customers. Since the third quarter of 2007, AT&T’s churn rate, or the rate at which it loses customers, has fallen to 1.49 percent from 1.7 percent, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless’ churn rate has risen during that time period to 1.37 percent from 1.27 percent.

The iPhone has also helped AT&T bring in more revenue. AT&T claims its iPhone customers spend more each month than its average post-paid wireless customers–about $100 a month. This has helped boost its overall revenue per user by about 4.7 percent to $60.21 per month since the third quarter of 2007.

But the cost to AT&T for these benefits has been high. Since last year, the company has been paying about $400 per iPhone to subsidize the cost of the device in exchange for requiring customers sign up for a two-year service contract. Even though AT&T is guaranteed at least $30 a month in data service fees, the company admits that the subsidy has hurt its short-term profit margins.

What’s more, because iPhone users download two to four times as many games, video, and other Web data as other smartphone users, AT&T has had to upgrade its network to keep up with demand.

Even though AT&T has been upgrading its network, customers have complained often about its poor performance. And this has had a negative effect on the company’s reputation. When subscribers experience problems with the iPhone, they often blame AT&T rather than Apple for the problem.

Because AT&T is the only carrier in the U.S. to offer the device, iPhone users regardless of whether they are satisfied with AT&T or not have been forced to stay on the network as long as they want to continue using their iPhone.

But if other carriers, such as Verizon, were to offer the iPhone, AT&T could see many of its existing iPhone customers leave. And it would likely cease to see any substantial uptick in new customers due to iPhone sales.

AT&T executives have said they realize that the iPhone exclusivity deal won’t last forever. And they say they are prepared for that day. But the truth is the longer the company can keep the iPhone exclusive to its network, the better off it will be.

However, it looks like AT&T’s chances of holding onto the iPhone in the U.S. for much longer are getting slimmer and slimmer. Even though Apple has said that it’s happy in its relationship with AT&T, it only makes sense for the company to get out of its exclusive deal as soon as it can.

Drugs commonly used to treat bleeding after birth may hamper a woman’s ability to breastfeed her baby, research suggests.

The study, which appears in the journal BJOG, suggests the drugs may impede milk production.

The Swansea University team also confirmed high doses of painkilling drugs have a similar effect.

The findings may help to explain the limited success of efforts to increase breastfeeding rates in the UK.

But an expert warned no firm conclusions could be drawn from the study.

The Department of Health recommends children are breastfed for the first six months, because of the health benefits it can provide for both mother and baby.

It has set a target of increasing breastfeeding rates by 2% each year.

But in the UK only 45% of babies are exclusively breastfeed just one week after their birth. One in four receive only formula milk from birth.

The Swansea team analysed data on more than 48,000 women who gave birth in South Wales.

They found use of the drugs oxytocin or ergometrine to cut the risk of haemorrhage was associated with an overall 7% decline in the proportion who started breastfeeding within 48 hours of giving birth.

Among women who were not given the drugs, two-thirds (65.5%) started breastfeeding within 48 hours of giving birth.

But among those given a shot of oxytocin the breastfeeding rate was 59.1%, and among those who were given an additional injection of ergometrine the rate fell to just 56.4%.

Milk production

The researchers believe the drugs may hamper a woman’s ability to produce milk.

This could mean that their initial attempts to breastfeed may end in frustration, and that many give up rather than persevering.

The link between painkilling drugs and lower rates of breastfeeding has already been established, and has led to revised NHS guidance on the use of epidurals in labour.

Lead researcher Dr Sue Jordan said more research was required, but based on the study’s findings use of the clotting drugs could lead to up to 50,000 fewer British babies being breastfed every year.

She calculated that this could mean an extra 1,000 children becoming clinically obese, and 3,000 developing childhood asthma.

Dr Jordan said the study highlighted a pressing need for follow-up research.

She said: “The potentially life-saving treatments to prevent bleeding after birth must not be compromised on the basis of this study but further studies are required to establish ways to minimise any effects on breastfeeding rates.

“In the meantime, what we would like to see would be provision of extra help for new mothers trying to establish breastfeeding by making sure to allow enough time for the effect of drugs given in labour to subside.”

Patrick O’Brien, a consultant obstetrician and spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the study was interesting, but more tightly-controlled follow ups were needed.

For instance, he said it was possible that women who refused drug therapy might also be more likely to breastfeed.

He said: “This small possible effect on breastfeeding has to be balanced against the beneficial effects of these drugs, which are known to reduce the risk of heavy bleeding after birth from 18% to 6%.

“At the moment, I would say the benefits of using the drugs outweigh the theoretical downsides.”

Rosemary Dodds, policy research officer for the National Childbirth Trust, said women needed more support to start breastfeeding.

She said: “A lot of women are not given enough information about the medications that might be given to them during childbirth, and women at low risk of bleeding may not need to take these drugs.

“It is important that women understand the risks and can give their informed consent before they go into labour.”

Dimitar Berbatov concluded a last-gasp move from Tottenham to Manchester United on last year’s transfer deadline day.

The closure of the transfer window in the Britain marks the end of the close- season trading, with clubs all over the continent tying up last-minute deals to ensure their teams have fresh talent for the coming campaign.

Dimitar Berbatov concluded a last-gasp move from Tottenham to Manchester United on last year’s transfer deadline day.

Weeks of wrangling over contracts and transfer fees need to be brought to a close by 1600 GMT today, to fall within the allocated time for swaps to occur.

The close season has already seen the world record transfer fee for a footballer smashed after Real Madrid paid $130 million to Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo.

So with big money changing hands, are there clubs who still have the cash to spend at this late stage?

Last season Manchester United signed Bulgaria’s Dimitar Berbatov in the dying minutes - could the remaining hours of the transfer window bring the same this time around? Read below to get the latest speculation and sealed deals (All times in GMT):

Confirmed deadline-day transfers:

Croatia striker Ivan Klasnic joins Bolton on a season-long loan from Nantes.
Aston Villa sign Wales defender James Collins from West Ham on four-year deal.
Glasgow Rangers seal one-year loan deal for Paris St. Germain winger Jerome Rothen.
Portsmouth agree season loan for Benfica midfielder Hassan Yebda.
Ajax confirm one-season loan deal of Inter Milan’s Brazilian Kerlon.
Portsmouth sign Israeli defender Tal Ben Haim from Manchester City.
Groningen sign Morten Nordstrand from FC Copenhagen on one-year loan.
Nurnberg sign Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting from Hamburg on one-year loan.
Uruguay midfielder Diego Arismendi signs for Stoke City in $5M move.

Press rumors/latest deals: