Twitter's Corporate Sale Might Have Stalled Before It Began
posted Saturday Oct 15, 2016 by Scott Ertz
Since word broke of Twitter's interest in a sale, suitors have come, and suitors have gone. 3 weeks ago, the list was a who's who of companies interested in social and data. Today, the list appears to be empty, with the 5 major rumored suitors all backing away from the discussions.
The last potential bidder for the first round was Salesforce.com, a company that focuses on customer support and sales. Adding Twitter to the company's portfolio would have been a good move. Twitter is used by many companies for customer interaction. I have, myself, interacted with my cable company via Twitter to solve problems, and even gotten an issue resolved with our local grocery store.
Word this week, however, is that Salesforce has walked away from the table, leaving no serious bidders still sitting with Twitter. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said,
In this case we've walked away. It wasn't the right fit for us.
Twitter's next move has to be a big one. They are going to have to address the issues that have caused the bidders to leave contention. Likely, the biggest issue on the table has to do with Twitter's inability to attract new users. That has caused the company to lose around $2 billion over the past few fiscal years. The only way that Twitter can address this issue is in sale price.
The problem, of course, is that the price can only be minimized so much because there are stockholders with stock certificates that are valued at a certain amount. While the price dropped 6 percent at the loss of Salesforce, that is probably not enough to attract new bidders, or to bring back old bidders. The company is going to have to do something, though, if they want this sale to happen.
