Twitter shares nosedive 20% as takeover talk subsides

Twitter shares tumbled by a fifth yesterday, as reports suggested most of the prospective buyers of the business have lost interest.

Technology website Recode said Disney, Google and Apple have all decided "not to move forward" with buyout talks.

Twitter shares plunged 20 per cent to $19.87 in the wake of the stories being published. That’s around half of their original 2013 listing price and less than a third of the $69 peak that year.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

To be fair, the BBC says Twitter's shares are actually trading above where they were before deal rumours began circulating last month.

Such volatile swings on what were always unconfirmed reports emphasises how investors who bought into the company at its earlier high valuations see a sale as the only viable way to generate a return on their outlay.

Twitter's user growth has stalled and it has struggled to find a way to monetise the 300 million "active" tweeters that use the service. It is still operating at a sizeable loss.

"They've had lots of swings at it and it hasn't worked," Douglas McIntyre, of the 24/7 Wall Street blog, said.

Twitter was still seen as a potentially attractive acquisition target because of its wide audience reach. Disney was thought to be particularly suited to taking it on, Recode says, as it is actively seeking new "digital outlets" for its content.

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey also sits on the board of Disney and is thought to be close to its boss Bob Iger.

Only one realistic prospective buyer now remains, according to analysts: cloud computing firm Salesforce.

Chief executive Marc Benioff yesterday refused to comment on any interest in Twitter. He said he would not "start a precedent by having to address specific deals".

He added: "The reality is we have to look at everything, but we're going to pass on most things."