Buyout Firm Thoma Bravo Approaches Twitter With Acquisition Interest To Rival Elon Musk's Bid (reuters.com) 55
Buyout firm Thoma Bravo has contacted Twitter to express interest in putting together an acquisition offer that would rival Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $43 billion bid. Reuters reports: Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm that had more than $103 billion in assets under management as of the end of December, has informed Twitter that it is exploring the possibility of putting together a bid, the sources said. It is not clear how much Thoma Bravo would be prepared to offer and there is no certainty that such a rival bid will materialize, the sources cautioned, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Going to bet what % of their pile (Score:2)
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A small portion of it. They will put together a bid with other stakeholders to spread around the risk. I assume Elon is planning the same thing.
There is some question now about what makes Twitter such an attractive takeover target.
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There is some question now about what makes Twitter such an attractive takeover target.
Who knows. You'd think with the kind of money being thrown around it would be possible to start a competitor and hire some rockstar coders to build something better. Then you use the rest of the umpteen billion dollars to launch a massive marketing campaign. I'm talking celebrities, sponsorships, late night pool parties with an open bar and barely legal twinks, the works.
Or, I guess if you're guess if you're going for the right-leaning crowd, some TV ads on Fox, some of those NASCAR wraps, Bud Light girl
Re: Going to bet what % of their pile (Score:2)
Has anything in the social space successfully used money to break in rather than growing more organically?
I know Google tried and failed for example.
If you want to displace twitter you need to have something special that makes people want to use it, then slowly grow.
TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Spapchat, these all grew because people used them and eventually they became the place to connect and share.
Google+ and Quibi (though that's not social or user generated content) are what happens when you
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I know Google tried and failed for example.
Worth mentioning that Google actually succeeded. They got everyone to sign up and give them their real name and gender (which is what they wanted to give advertisers all along).
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Far from everyone..
None of my Google accounts have those and I actually asked quite many friends at some point in the past and only one of about 20 account they had in total had those..
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You're right, marketing will only take a mediocre product so far. Step one absolutely has to be building a better mousetrap. It would be one thing if Twitter did what it does really well, but it actually doesn't. Discussions are hard to follow, the algorithm that determines which tweets get shown and which ones languish in the void is a mystery, and the character limit is annoying.
Google+'s failure is because they built a half-assed social media platform and expected it to succeed on brand recognition al
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I feel like G+'s failure was an attempt to give people what they wanted leading to a complex system.
Sure, the concept of circles sounds great on paper, but if they automatically add all of your contacts and make you think about how to categorize them all at once it becomes a chore to get started.
Getting the most out of G+ required a thought and time investment and then using a new service you don't really care about.
If we compare it to a situation where it grew organically, you add a person or 2 a day, and
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The thing is that once such a thing is started it attracts all the people banned on twitter mostly people on the right.
Then people start talking about how the new site is a superduper--alt-right site, and it doesn't attract average users.
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Presumably so, but in what way?
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It wasn't Twitter that suppressed the story of the contents of Hunter's laptop. It was plenty of media companies, including most notably the New York Times.
Personally, I don't think it would make any difference. People would hear, "Biden is a corrupt nepotist," and think, "How is that different from Trump?" The story of nepotism was a minor one in the election (although enough to make Biden unpopular today).
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What is the Hunter Biden laptop story? It's nothing important, just innuendo that you can be sure prosecutors would take an interest in if it wasn't.
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Whether it's illegal is separate from whether it's improprietous. And indeed, it appears to have been improprietous nepotism (whether or not it was illegal).
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It's my opinion that Hunter giving Joe, The Big Guy, 10% of $31 million worth of Chinese investments, a ride on Air Force Two to set up some of the deals and co-mingled bank accounts goes far beyond "Biden is a corrupt nepotist." 17% of Biden voters said they wouldn't have voted for Joe Biden had they known about the NY Post story on the contents which the sharing of was blocked by both Twitter and Facebook.
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Twitter demonstrated the ability to "fortify the election"
I honestly think people overestimate the amount of influence the internet has on elections.
Back when I voted in 2018, while I was waiting to put my ballot in the scanning machine, the elderly woman in front of me was having a problem with the machine rejecting her ballot. A poll worker came over to assist her, and it turned out she'd mistakenly voted for two candidates seeking the same office. She looked genuinely puzzled when the poll worker attempted to explain why that was causing the machine to reject
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Twitter's influence is more over the Journalists who decide what news is presented to the public, how far the lead is buried and how the story is spun.
Make a new one (Score:2)
Thoma Bravo (Score:3)
Thoma Bravo is one of those Vulture Capitals that sells off assets, fires people, and then claims to have made the company profitable. They aren't the worst, but they have very little respect for employees. (This was my experience working with them).
The upside is that they are honest. If you say, "You only want to sell off our assets" they will say, "Yes, that was a big part of it."
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In fairness, Twitter can't really need that many people to keep running.
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Far, far better off working for Musk than listening to the MBAs explain how much better things are for you now that you have three times as much work to do and your customers think you suck.
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My experience with them was the opposite. Like many PE's, they have more than one playbook, and it sounds like you just happen to be on the receiving end of one of the less desirable ones.
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Well what was your experience then? Share it instead of being vague.
That's how I would do it (Score:1)
If I were Musk, I'd make my public offer, but then have an arrangement with a company like this to secretly fund 80% of a second offer they were making and take over the company that way...
Musk would pay less because he'd have the company make a lower offer than his own, which Twitter would feel compelled to accept to spite Musk. Maybe 42.69 a share, but that might give the game away.
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If I were Musk, I'd literally put some of Twitter's stock on board one of my rockets. Then I'd tweet the stock is about to go straight to the moon.
The profits would be epic.
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Very interesting situation (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing about Musk and Twitter is far more interesting than I think most people realize.
Consider: When Musk offered to buy twitter, everyone predicted that Twitter would institute a poison pill. So, since everyone else predicted the poison pill, did Musk expect the poison pill as well?
Given how smart Musk is, and that he probably gets high-end advice, it seems likely that he knew what steps would be taken and in what order. Musk could have simply purchased 51% of the stock quickly, if owning Twitter was his goal. Instead, he made the offer and waited.
So if he knew what would happen, what is his real goal?
He's as much as admitted that if Twitter doesn't take his deal he's going to sell his stock, and if that happens we can predict that twitter stock will tank, and then the board will be in BIG trouble for not following their fiduciary duty to do what's in the best interests of the stockholders (by taking a deal that would have given them 38% over the current stock price).
American Thinker [americanthinker.com] has some interesting viewpoints about the situation, and references the following [americanthinker.com]:
If the left has such a problem with Elon, where was their objection to the Saudi prince's buying up such a percentage of Twitter shares? Where's their concern about his influence? Aren't they always yelling about Saudi Arabia? So, where's the objection to him? Notice, not so much, because he rows with the elite.
And Andrew Torba of Gab made a counter offer [gab.com] to Musk, asking to integrate starlink with Gab. He points out that with Gab they had to build their own apps, hosting, E-mail, analytics, servers, and payment processors, but at this point don't have their own service providers. Starlink would be the last piece of that puzzle, which would effectively springboard a 2nd internet!
Don't like it? Build your own internet... that's exactly what Andrew Torba is suggesting.
It sounds a whole lot like Musk is playing an elaborate high-stakes game, with an endpoint goal that no one has figured out yet.
Really, really interesting stuff.
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Have to agree it's interesting and Musk has to know this was an option they would take but Musk does have a streak of "true believer" to him even if I find is somewhat misguided at times. It's also definitely the case that when you reach that level you will have a lot of yes men around who either don't want to tell him it's a bad idea or he thinks they are wrong and did it anyway.
I do disagee about the board being in very much trouble if he ends up selling. Twitter was at $39 before this fiasco, it jumped
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The hard part is bringing the audience
That's why you have some kind of loyalty program like T-Mobile Tuesdays. People love free stuff, even if it turns out to just be coupons and Impossible Burgers.
Thanks for the reply (Score:2, Interesting)
Have to agree it's interesting and
I just wanted to say, it's refreshing to have a reply that's insightful, and that also has no ad-hominem attacks. It's rare on slashdot, but it does happen...
You may very well be right, although I'm not 100% convinced. Rather than argue, I think it'll be more entertaining to just sit back and watch.
I've already heard rumors of big players (an investment firm and a big bank whose names I don't recall) planning to purchase big chunks of twitter stock precisely to prevent Musk from taking over.
I've also heard
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Exactly, nobody talking about it here is going to have any effect on the outcome but this is like movie level business dealings happening. Hell I don't think I've witnessesed an actual major attempt at a real "hostile takeover" that I can remember.
I can see him trying a proxy play but I imagine he would keep it close to the vest in terms of people. Vanguard is usually pretty conservative in how it conducts itself. I have some investments with them because theyre the kind of company that doesn't seem to i
Re: Thanks for the reply (Score:1)
Re:Very interesting situation (Score:4, Interesting)
Lol, billionaire is mad he doesn’t get his own way on the playground so he builds his own.
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and then the board will be in BIG trouble for not following their fiduciary duty
No they wouldn't. There's no legal requirement to accept a deal simply because it's high, there's no legal requirement to predict the future either. Musk selling the stock would in terms of any certain supply and demand not move his stock any more than when he bought it. And even if it did tank that "fiduciary duty" has nothing to do with a short term change in stock value, it's related to what's thought to be in the long term best interest of the business.
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It's the pump phase of a pump and dump scam.
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> Musk could have simply purchased 51% of the stock quickly, if owning Twitter was his goal.
Only 38% of Twitter shares are on the open market.
There is speculation that Thoma Bravo isn't a competitor to Musk, but actually a right flank. We'll see.
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Given how smart Musk is, and that he probably gets high-end advice
Musk strikes me as someone who's smart, but not quite as smart as he thinks he is (and who will tend to ignore advice).
it seems likely that he knew what steps would be taken and in what order. Musk could have simply purchased 51% of the stock quickly, if owning Twitter was his goal. Instead, he made the offer and waited.
Wasn't an option for multiple reasons.
So if he knew what would happen, what is his real goal?
Poison pills make hostile takeovers harder, but not impossible. He might be planning to up his offer, work the board, etc, etc.
Or he might be screwing around, making an offer he knew would likely be rejected as some kind of revenge for being rejected from the board. He is a bit of a drama queen after all.
He's as much as admitted that if Twitter doesn't take his deal he's going to sell his stock, and if that happens we can predict that twitter stock will tank, and then the board will be in BIG trouble for not following their fiduciary duty to do what's in the best interests of the stockholders (by taking a deal that would have given them 38% over the current stock price).
No reason for it to fall below it's pre-offer val
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Store and forward (Score:2)
Netnews transmitted vast amounts (for it's time) of uncensorable information. It had cancel-able messages, and the idea of reputation bots. Redoing the concept of twitter in this way would scale to the solar system and beyond. A good book: Fire Upon The Deep.
Building something along the lines of the bundle protocol would shake the bugs out of a general purpose deep space network.
Poison pill isn't gone (Score:2)
Whether the buyer is Elon Musk, or Thoma Bravo, the poison pill is still there. Both potential buyers know this, but are pushing ahead anyway. It seems likely that Twitter will be bought, one way or another.
Win Win for Musk (Score:3)
He gets the company or someone outbids him and makes his stock that much more valuable.
For those who have not yet noticed... (Score:3)
There are people all over the world, with very large piles of cash, who have a very big interest in NOT enabling true free speech. For them, the idea that Musk would buy Twitter and end the targeted censorship there, thus restoring a platform with a historically and culturally American view of Free Speech, is a large threat. A certain Saudi prince comes to mind [study yesterday's news if you missed it]. It will actually be surprising if even more organizations and corporations fail to step forward to further the effort to stop a Musk purchase, the piling-on is what's to be expected.
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There are people all over the world, with very large piles of cash, who have a very big interest in NOT enabling true free speech. For them, the idea that Musk would buy Twitter and end the targeted censorship there, thus restoring a platform with a historically and culturally American view of Free Speech, is a large threat. A certain Saudi prince comes to mind [study yesterday's news if you missed it]. It will actually be surprising if even more organizations and corporations fail to step forward to further the effort to stop a Musk purchase, the piling-on is what's to be expected.
Or they think that there is a way to monetize Twitter that will make it way more valuable. YouTube was a money pit until it wasn't. Twitter has major name recognition and a huge user base, there's probably money there.
At the same time if Musk did buy Twitter and basically disabled the mods all he'd really do is kill Twitter. The only alt-right figure who really brought users to Twitter was Trump, the rest probably hurt the bottom line way more than they helped by giving it a toxic reputation.
If someone goes
Thoma bravo is shit. (Score:1)
Cheaper option (Score:1)