eBay and PayPal have been joined at the hip ever since the former acquired the latter in 2002, however that won't be the case for much longer. eBay Inc. has today announced that the two companies will split into separate, publicly traded companies in 2015.

The split is to allow both companies to focus on their respective strengths, grow as businesses, and remain flexible. As the commerce and payment markets are "rapidly changing", the board of eBay felt the two businesses would operate more efficiently as separate companies, and so that's exactly what is occurring.

The new CEO of eBay will be Devin Wenig, the current head of eBay marketplaces, while PayPal will be headed by the newly-hired American Express executive Dan Schulman. Current eBay CEO and President, John Donahoe, as well as CFO Bob Swan, will serve on the boards of the new companies.

Earlier this year, eBay resisted pressure from investor Carl Icahn and others to split PayPal into its own business, with Donahoe saying at the time that "commerce and payments are converging, not diverging." Despite fighting Icahn and winning, the split is going ahead anyway, with all shareholders to receive one share of each company for every eBay share they currently own.