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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

news.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#62
LinkedIn closed public trading on Friday at ~131 per share. This deal represents a $196 per share price - so anyone that purchased on Friday is looking at ~50% ROI.

Is this the best non-Facebook ROI for a social network that's been available to the public markets?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#63
post #11

Oh, I can just imagine how the process went at MS: * Exec A: Social things are Good (coming to the conclusion about 10 years too late) * Exec B: Shall we create our own Google+? * Exec C: No, that didn't turn out that well for Google. Let's buy something existing. * Exec B: Ok, I've Googled a list of top 10 social networking sites for sale, and ordered them by list price, but really we'll need to come up with a strat…

Ah, the armchair critic. I'm by no means a Microsoft fanboy, but things have been much better under Satya Nadella.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#65
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Snapchat or Instagram, which could very likely turn into MySpace 2.0 or 3.0, Linkedin is actually very entrenched in its market.

What market is exactly that? I still have no idea what Linkedin is all about. Edit: Yes, keep downvoting me, asking questions about LinkedIn clearly doesn't add to the discussion. sigh

It seems like LinkedIn is more the butt of jokes now than in its heyday when everyone was advised to get on it. Heyday being 2011-ish? Or is there a large number of C-level type people who went to elite colleges and are SV VCs who use it a lot, who are just out of my social league?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#67

Why would Microsoft release a major M&A announcement at 8:35 AM EST / 5:35 AM PST? It's not even the professional workday yet!

As others have stated, this is about prepping the debt markets. They have to sell the deal to potential bond investors.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#68
just my own prediction.. msft will attempt to replatform the entire stack onto Azure, making heavy use of their Azure platform services as a way to show how scalable they are (sort of the same play they made with hotmail decades ago).

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#69

Why would Microsoft release a major M&A announcement at 8:35 AM EST / 5:35 AM PST? It's not even the professional workday yet!

To get the news out without disrupting the markets - it's fairer to allow people to see news like this while the instrument is not trading.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#70
post #7

I hope this will usher in an era of less unethical behaviour from the company under new leadership. Congratulations to shareholders. Anyone know why they'd negotiate an all cash settlement?

> I hope this will usher in an era of less unethical behaviour from the company under new leadership.

/s ?

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