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Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

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Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#31

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

I think the most famous counter-example would be Netflix in 2012

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20214401

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#33
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The board of a public company cannot reasonably claim that they’re worth twice(!) what the market currently values their company at simply because they feel it’s true. Unless they have advertising contracts and growth metrics in the pipeline that represent a reasonable doubling of revenue and value, they’re acting legally irresponsibly. Justifying this is difficult. This is objectively a good offer.

The literal value is their share price x total shares. The notional value is at best the NPV of future profit streams. However Twitter's track record on profits are dismal so the claim is dubious legally.

No, that’s only for shares trading at the moment. Otherwise buyouts would not have the premium they normally do.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#35

Quoted post unavailable.

Bias? Of course it is. It's one point of view. Anyone is free to cite one of the thousands of opinions to the contrary.

Would the naysayers say a site was "biased" if it claimed "this is a direct threat to our democracy"?

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#36

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

Read some Matt Levine, he's way more articulate and makes finance quite fun. But if I were to take a stab at it:

The market has been so weird recently that stock splits - which according to previous theoretical belief do not create shareholder value - have in fact increased the share price for extended periods. So issuing stock for whatever reason (high price, poison pill) could be seen as shareholder maximizing.

One could say diluting the stock so that a particular personality cannot buy the whole company could be shareholder maximizing as it would entrench ESG held values -- emboldening new shareholders to purchase the stock (saving the stock price).

And point of information, by diluting rather than selling already owned shares, control is not ceded to the potential acquirer -- unless the potential acquirer doesn't care about the poison pill and will pay the premium for the new issue as well.

This is quite fun to watch.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#37

I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right? Vanguard, for example, has just had its range of further investment lim…

You're claiming that Musk's purchase of twitter is objectively good for shareholders

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#38
post #10
post #3

I wonder if Twitter would be in the right to deactivate musk’s account. They’re a company & he’s clearly trying to cause them harm. I see no reasons as to why it wouldn’t be justified. (Hilarious too, I might add.

Because he's a near-10% shareholder and accounts like his are a major driver of new account growth. I wonder if this episode has impacted growth or engagement metrics any. Hard to imagine it hasn't

[deleted]

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#39

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#40
post #12
post #9

Predictably stupid. They're going to come back and say the company is worth >$70B.

That's how the game is played. If you want to take over a company without the consent of its executives, it's going to be a fight and you're probably going to lose.

If Musk fails, are there likely to be any lasting effects to Twitter or more generally to the market?
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