Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 1001 posts

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

#131

Post by alasdair_ »

akvadrako wrote: post #88
nickysielicki wrote: post #29

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…

I'm pretty sure a majority of shares of Twitter care about making the most money ahead of everything else. But just offering a 50% premium might not be enough. They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains and they'll need to find other places to put their money.

>They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains

The bulk of the holders of stock in most public companies are institutional investors that don't need to pay taxes on the realized gains.

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

#132

Post by hackernewds »

and-not-drew wrote: post #75
anonymouse008 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 You're right that theoretically, they shouldn't create value, but I think even back to the 80s and 90s it's been shown that companies that go through a split tend to out perform the market for years after the split. The…

So that selection bias seems to project that buying before a share split is actually not an educated+good decision

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

#133

Post by jungturk »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #110
akvadrako wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure a majority of shares of Twitter care about making the most money ahead of everything else. But just offering a 50% premium might not be enough. They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains and they'll need to find other places to put their money.

That’s been it though. If the board of Twitter isn’t concerned about what is best for the share folders, a direct violation of their fiduciary responsibility, then what is their interest? If Twitter isn’t a business to make money to them, what is it, and who is it for?

A parameter in assessing the relative value of the offer to shareholders is the time horizon.

Perhaps the board believes the value of the shares over the next year or two is substantially higher than Musk's offer, such that they should reject the buyout so that shareholders can reap that gain.

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

#134

Post by aetherson »

paxys wrote: post #106
nickysielicki wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it’s at a share price premium for 90%+ of the lifetime of the stock since IPO, yes. Most shares were bought below the price Musk is asking.

Not everyone buys a stock for a quick short-term turnaround. If I expect Twitter to 20x in the next 5 years why would I want to sell my share to Elon? And existing investors all have the option to cash out today for just 17% less than Musk's final offer.

If you expect Twitter to 20x in the next 5 years, then

a: You're dreaming.

b: You're absolutely expecting a quick short-term gain.

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

#135

Post by newaccount2021 »

nickysielicki wrote: post #29

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#136

Post by tyre »

krona wrote: post #128
philistine wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon's offer is at the same time an hostile offer, and conditional on obtaining financing from banks. This is never heard of in the history of hostile acquisitions, and is a BIG risk for the board to entertain any attempt by anyone to buy Twitter before they know what their loan percentages are.

What's wrong with a leveraged buyout, for example? It seems like the norm these days, not the exception.

Twitter already has a lot of debt, far too much to fund this.

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

#137

Post by hajile »

philistine wrote: post #77
nickysielicki wrote: post #29

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…

Elon's offer is at the same time an hostile offer, and conditional on obtaining financing from banks. This is never heard of in the history of hostile acquisitions, and is a BIG risk for the board to entertain any attempt by anyone to buy Twitter before they know what their loan percentages are.

Once Elon owns the company, HE is the one taking the risk on the loan -- NOT the board of directors.

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

#138

Post by missedthecue »

alphabetting wrote: post #58
memish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a shareholder and end user of the product, I agree.

you want to cash out with a 20% bump and be out of the stock during a huge tech equity downturn when the stock was over 60% higher last year?

I think last year was some serious bubbliciousness, not the true value of Twitter and all the other tech companies (and shitcoins and NFTs and basically everything else people were throwing money at)

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

#139

Post by tyre »

_3u10 wrote: post #117
akvadrako wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure a majority of shares of Twitter care about making the most money ahead of everything else. But just offering a 50% premium might not be enough. They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains and they'll need to find other places to put their money.

Yeah I made 10% getting in after the disclosure was made. I’d actually invest in a twitter owned by Elon and likely ditch all my other profiles too. A platform that makes money and has free speech would be wonderful. Maybe he can steal Rogan from Spotify too.

What’s a concrete example of speech that you’d make which is specifically banned on Twitter?

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

#140

Post by mschuster91 »

_3u10 wrote: post #117
akvadrako wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure a majority of shares of Twitter care about making the most money ahead of everything else. But just offering a 50% premium might not be enough. They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains and they'll need to find other places to put their money.

Yeah I made 10% getting in after the disclosure was made. I’d actually invest in a twitter owned by Elon and likely ditch all my other profiles too. A platform that makes money and has free speech would be wonderful. Maybe he can steal Rogan from Spotify too.

What value does a platform have when people are fed up with those who complain about "I want free speech" and leave for greener pastures?

Just look at Facebook. It's widely seen as "boomer garbage" that's only used as a least-common-denominator resort for communication by the target group these days, and conspiracy crap groups and peddlers of propaganda are a huge part of the reason.

Platforms and societies that fail to maintain some basic social order all eventually disintegrate into chaos.

Post reply on HN