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Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

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Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#31

Post by karangoeluw »

Riod wrote: post #28
karangoeluw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending 3X the public market valuation Just last year, Twitter’s market cap was more than double what it is today. Since then, they have managed to grow revenue by 48% while reducing the losses by 9%. So, with all that, I think $29B is a steal for the acquisition. EDIT: my last response here was uninformed. > And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Clearly you have…

If it is an early stage company that has the ability to not just increase revenue/customer but also total number of customers. Also the competition in the bidding process matters. There are a limited number of players who can/will swallow an acquisition this size. Public companies never get bought for these numbers. Why would Google bid that when a 30-40% premium would be enough for most shareholders to vote yes? On…

I don't have numbers, but a lot of shareholders are still out of the money - they bought when the price was climbing from ~40 to the peak of 70.

I doubt that a 40% premium will be enough. But I can see your skepticism. A lot of acquisitions never make sense.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#32

Post by wslh »

karangoeluw wrote: post #21
wslh wrote: post #12

This is an unreal post: "When Alphabet bought Twitter back in June 2016 for almost $29 billion", you can easily check Twitter valuation at $10 billion here: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ATWTR&ei=gHO_VpH9GsnB... so... spending 3X the public market valuation will be crazy. And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Also the posts saying: "I quit Facebook" are nons…

> spending 3X the public market valuation Just last year, Twitter’s market cap was more than double what it is today. Since then, they have managed to grow revenue by 48% while reducing the losses by 9%. So, with all that, I think $29B is a steal for the acquisition. EDIT: my last response here was uninformed. > And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Clearly you have…

> 3x is not a crazy multiple for a company that has grown revenue by 48% and decreased losses by 10% (yoy)

Tell me please of other public companies which also were acquired by public companies for that multiplier.

> Clearly you have not read the post, and are jumping to conclusions.

I read the post and it offers a childish reason why Twitter should be acquired by Google.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#33

Post by Riod »

karangoeluw wrote: post #31
Riod wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is an early stage company that has the ability to not just increase revenue/customer but also total number of customers. Also the competition in the bidding process matters. There are a limited number of players who can/will swallow an acquisition this size. Public companies never get bought for these numbers. Why would Google bid that when a 30-40% premium would be enough for most shareholders to vote yes? On…

I don't have numbers, but a lot of shareholders are still out of the money - they bought when the price was climbing from ~40 to the peak of 70. I doubt that a 40% premium will be enough. But I can see your skepticism. A lot of acquisitions never make sense.

It would most likely not get past Google's board. And investors would crucify them for paying that kind of premium for a stalled social network (aka don't get the incremental benefits of growth via network effects). They would be left with 1) increase revenue/user or 2) cut costs.

Periscope doesn't fulfill the "toothbrush" principle, aka stuff that you use every day. That's how Google does M&A. Their corporate development people have talked about it publicly.

Also, the shares turnover every 26 days given that about 26MM shares trade every day. Hard to say that a majority of the shareholder base would not accept a 40% premium.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#34

Post by Riod »

wslh wrote: post #32
karangoeluw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending 3X the public market valuation Just last year, Twitter’s market cap was more than double what it is today. Since then, they have managed to grow revenue by 48% while reducing the losses by 9%. So, with all that, I think $29B is a steal for the acquisition. EDIT: my last response here was uninformed. > And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Clearly you have…

> 3x is not a crazy multiple for a company that has grown revenue by 48% and decreased losses by 10% (yoy) Tell me please of other public companies which also were acquired by public companies for that multiplier. > Clearly you have not read the post, and are jumping to conclusions. I read the post and it offers a childish reason why Twitter should be acquired by Google.

I think ^^ is the guy who wrote the post. But he is still off the mark.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#35

Post by karangoeluw »

wslh wrote: post #32
karangoeluw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending 3X the public market valuation Just last year, Twitter’s market cap was more than double what it is today. Since then, they have managed to grow revenue by 48% while reducing the losses by 9%. So, with all that, I think $29B is a steal for the acquisition. EDIT: my last response here was uninformed. > And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Clearly you have…

> 3x is not a crazy multiple for a company that has grown revenue by 48% and decreased losses by 10% (yoy) Tell me please of other public companies which also were acquired by public companies for that multiplier. > Clearly you have not read the post, and are jumping to conclusions. I read the post and it offers a childish reason why Twitter should be acquired by Google.

See my edited response in the parent comment.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#36

Post by azinman2 »

sigmar wrote: post #16
fchollet wrote: post #14

So Periscope and Moments would be the saving grace of Twitter? On what planet does the author live?

Moments is pretty amazing. Have you used it? Seems to me like it is miles ahead of snapchat's stories

Apples and oranges. Snapchat is personal, moments is more like news.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#37

Post by joe_the_user »

karangoeluw wrote: post #35
wslh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3x is not a crazy multiple for a company that has grown revenue by 48% and decreased losses by 10% (yoy) Tell me please of other public companies which also were acquired by public companies for that multiplier. > Clearly you have not read the post, and are jumping to conclusions. I read the post and it offers a childish reason why Twitter should be acquired by Google.

See my edited response in the parent comment.

I don't know about childish but the argument seems very 2012 or something. Twitter is going to keep bigger 'cause social is the thing! That's it?

It seems like there's good evidence that Twitter is limited by the Twitter - most people don't like to scream at the world (post a stream of public crap) and for those that do, Twitter is kind of the lowest quality pedestal to stand while you do so.

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#39

Post by SomewhatLikely »

wslh wrote: post #32
karangoeluw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spending 3X the public market valuation Just last year, Twitter’s market cap was more than double what it is today. Since then, they have managed to grow revenue by 48% while reducing the losses by 9%. So, with all that, I think $29B is a steal for the acquisition. EDIT: my last response here was uninformed. > And speaking about science fiction, what will Alphabet/Google do to turn around Twitter? Clearly you have…

> 3x is not a crazy multiple for a company that has grown revenue by 48% and decreased losses by 10% (yoy) Tell me please of other public companies which also were acquired by public companies for that multiplier. > Clearly you have not read the post, and are jumping to conclusions. I read the post and it offers a childish reason why Twitter should be acquired by Google.

Googling for "premium on the stock's previous closing price" reveals a few non-tech deals, none of which are above 1.5x

Re: Twitter: Years After the Alphabet Acquisition

#40

Post by Animats »

From the article: "Twitter is live".

Now that's a useful concept to focus the business. That tells Twitter what not to do. Twitter should do only things that are happening right now. All retrospective uses of Twitter data would be via Google and Google accounts.

Monetization of Twitter might not involve ads on Twitter. Google could data-mine Twitter for ad-targeting data. That might be more useful than "paid tweets".

Google's AI capabilities could be used to digest the Twitter flood and create news alerts. A Google Maps overlay of where things are happening on Twitter right now, for example. Enough activity, and a Google satellite (yes, Google has their own spy satellites [1]) would focus on the target area as soon as possible.

This could work out.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-10/google-buy...

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