Twitter/Facebook Deal Fell Through over “Price and Structure”. However there is still hope.

Written on 2nd March 2009                                                                                                              4 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.

In an interesting interview with Business Week, Peter Theil, one of Facebook’s early investors and currently on the board of Directors, said the much discussed Facebook/Twitter deal fell apart over “price and Structure’.

The article quotes the initial post from tech site All Things Digital, which brought the story to the blogosphere, throwing a figure of approximately $500 million for Twitter – the majority of which was Facebook stock. It is the calculation of value for the ’stock’ which seems to have been and the main reason for Twitter’s reluctance to accept Facebook’s offer.

Representatives of Twitter liked the sound of $500 million but balked when Facebook said its stock was worth $8 billion to $9 billion. Twitter’s team knew that Facebook was letting employees sell stock on the secondary market at company valuations ranging from $2 billion to $4 billion. “We said it’s not worth it,” the person says. “Don’t treat us like children.”

At that point, Facebook offered Twitter around $100 million in cash, with the rest of the deal in stock. Facebook said it would come up with the $100 million by selling more of its stock to outside investors.

Twitter agreed on one condition: that the Facebook stock it received be valued at the price company shares garnered on the open market. Facebook blinked and the deal talks ended.

According to the Thiel, Facebook and Twitter are still in “conscious dialogue”, so a deal could still be on the table – although holding your breath is not recommended.

deal, facebook, twitter

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Google deal blocked in Russia: cannot buy the contextual advertising company Begun yet

Written on 23rd October 2008                                                                                                              1 COMMENT
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr

Not everybody likes Google, although many of them uses it.
It seems some high power people in Russia don’t like Google either. At least, they don’t like how Google tries to enter in each and every regional market.

This time Google tried to buy the contextul advertising firm Begun (a subsidiary of Rambler.ru search engine and the second biggest player in the russian contextual advertising field). The russian search engine (among the top three in the country) agreed to sell its division to Google for a reported $140 million.

But the authorities (Federal Antimonopoly Service – FAS) said that Kokuna Holdings Limited (owned by Google) failed to provide all the documentation needed to close the deal.

The chief of the FAS Igor Artemyev told Vedomosti, that “Google has not provided accurate and adequate information about the structure of ownership and therefore was refused“.

A source close to shareholders Rambler told Vedomosti that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was not pleased by Google taking over the local market as it did in other markets.

It’s not that hard to believe this rumour considering Mr. Putin’s past actions.

advertising, begun, contextual, deal, google, rambler, russia

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