IT IS REPORTED this afternoon that Cisco Systems has made a formal offer to acquire Skype before it is floated on the NASDAQ.

The company filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) last year hoping to appear on stock markets before the end of 2010, but technology news blog Techcrunch says a reliable source believes Cisco has made a formal offer to trump the public process.

Skype’s formal producer Skype Limited, which is based in London but registered in Luxembourg, was itself acquired by auction site eBay in 2005 in a deal worth US$2.6bn (€2.05bn at today’s exchange rate).

The auction site sold off a 65% stake in the company to a consortium led by Silver Lake partners in September of last year, having tried to offload the service on the private market but being unable to find a buyer at a price it considered appropriate. The resale earned eBay $1.91bn (€1.5bn).

While the site says it has been unable to corroborate the Cisco story, it argues that such a tight-lipped attitude would not be uncommon among firms seeking an IPO and believes the story to be true.

It adds that Skype insiders were hoping for an initial flotation of about US$5bn, so Cisco would be assumed to be at least approaching that valuation.

The site also reports that Google had been interested in bidding for the service previously, but were persuased otherwise by antitrust concerns, with the search giant’s own Google Voice application being rolled into Gmail last week.

eBay shares are up, though only slightly, in early trading in New York.