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Twitter may reportedly accept Elon Musk’s offer to buy out the social media company as early as Monday.
“Twitter Inc is nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk for $54.20 per share in cash, the price that he originally offered to the social media company and called his ‘best and final’, people familiar with the matter said,” Reuters reported.
“Twitter may announce the $43 billion deal later on Monday once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, the sources said. It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added. Twitter has not been able to secure so far a ‘go-shop’ provision under its agreement with Musk that would allow it to solicit other bids from potential acquirers once the deal is signed, the sources said. Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Musk a break-up fee, the sources added,” the report added.
BREAKING: Twitter set to accept Elon Musk's 'best and final' offerhttps://t.co/nFpanfV86o
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 25, 2022
On Sunday, it was reported that Twitter changed course on Musk’s multi-billion dollar offer to buy out the social media company.
Musk disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that he has secured the money to buy Twitter outright.
“Twitter had been expected to rebuff the offer, which Mr. Musk made earlier this month without saying how he would pay for it,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “But after he disclosed last week that he now has $46.5 billion in the financing, Twitter is taking a fresh look at the offer and is more likely than before to seek to negotiate.”
The WSJ report said negotiations between Twitter and Musk are “fast-moving” and that the company is expected to “weigh in on the bid” later this week.
“The potential turnabout on Twitter’s part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a ‘yes-or-no’ decision to make,” the report added. “He also pledged to solve the free-speech issues he sees as plaguing the platform and the country more broadly, whether his bid succeeds or not.”
In his SEC filing, Musk reported that he had secured $46.5 billion from three sources to buy the company, including $13 billion from Morgan Stanley, $12.5 billion from other banks, and $21 billion from himself.
For this move to succeed, Musk needs a majority of Twitter’s shareholders to agree to a tender offer made directly to them by Musk and his backers.
Then, Musk can change the Twitter board and remove the “poison pill” the company adopted against him last week, which was aimed at stopping his “hostile takeover.”
“The co-investors will combined have more equity than Musk but he will be the biggest single holder,” one source told the Post.
“Private equity firms don’t get paid for headline risk,” one source said, hinting that Musk’s ability to create controversy may scare off some investors.
“A lot of private equity firms are doing the work and struggling on the valuation,” a source said. “This is not growing like Instagram or TikTok. You can only raise $10 billion of bank debt, and then maybe some preferred shares. Twitter does not have a whole lot of cash flow.”
Musk posted a three-word tweet on Monday that could mean just about anything but has some speculating that he is foreshadowing his next move to buy the social media behemoth Twitter.
In between tweets that wished the world a happy Easter holiday and the achievements of one of the companies he founded, SpaceX, he posted “Love Me Tender.”
Last week, Musk made an offer to pay $54.20 per share to buy Twitter, which would amount to around $43 billion.
