After Musk unveiled a $46.5 billion financing package, Twitter's resistance to acquisitions began to loosen. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Twitter is re-evaluating Musk's acquisition plan, and the two sides intend to start talks on April 24, local time.
People familiar with the matter said Twitter was assessing its own value to compare it with Musk's $54.20 per share bid. Twitter may insist that acquirers such as Musk sign a "break-up fee" clause in order to be compensated in the event of a collapse in the takeover talks.
People familiar with the matter stressed that the incident is still rapidly evolving, and Twitter's attitude will still change.
Twitter expects to publish its views on the acquisition when it releases its earnings report on April 28, local time. Twitter's response may not simply agree or decline, but invite other acquirers or negotiate terms with Musk beyond the purchase price.
It is reported that after Musk came up with a $46.5 billion financing plan on April 21, local time, he screened some Twitter shareholders the next day, mainly actively managed funds, and made video calls to them, hoping to influence Twitter's decision through them. Musk said that because Twitter's business problems have not been corrected for a long time, Twitter alone will never be able to raise the stock price to the level of $54.2 per share.
Shares of Musk have risen 6.7 percent since they proposed to buy Twitter on April 14, but the closing price of $48.93 on Friday was still nearly 10 percent below Musk's offer. Previously, Twitter's board had planned to launch a "poison pill" plan to try to block Musk's acquisition by issuing a large number of discounted shares.
Image source: Ying Wei Cai
Jeff Gramm, portfolio manager at New York-based hedge fund Bandera Partners, believes Twitter's board should consider Musk's takeover proposal because Twitter's stock price has been flat since its eight-year listing. He said that if Twitter's board is to reject Musk's acquisition, it will have to come up with a valuable alternative to shareholders, and at this stage, Twitter has no other option than to find a higher bidder.
Reporter | Li Menglin
Editor| Wang Yuelong, Gao Han, Yi Qijiang
Proofreader | Sun Zhicheng
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