Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion buyout of Twitter may have just passed one key hurdle. The company’s board of directors has unanimously recommended that shareholders approve the sale. They are expected to vote on the deal at the end of next month, or in early August.
In an interview earlier this week, Musk raised concerns about shareholder approval if the Twitter deal were to go through. “Will the shareholders vote in favor?” he said.
There are likely several factors leading to this concern from Musk. Some shareholders recently sued the Tesla CEO and Twitter over the proposed privatization of the company and handling of the process. Additionally, the social network‘s share price is currently far lower than Musk’s offering price of $54.20 per share, “signaling that investors have considerable doubt” over the deal happening.
Twitter stock closed at $38.91 Tuesday. It hasn’t crossed $50 since early May. At the current price, investors would earn a profit of over $15 per share. Shareholders have doubt that Musk would buy out the company for such high prices. But the Twitter board’s unanimous recommendation may have now instilled some hope inside the Tesla CEO.
Musk has several other concerns about the Twitter deal
In the aforementioned interview, Musk had laid out three major “unresolved matters” in the way of his Twitter buyout. While the shareholder approval may have been addressed, the other two concerns could still be the dealbreakers. Firstly, Twitter has yet to provide Mus with a satisfactory explanation of the proportion of fake or spam accounts on the platform. The social network claims less than five percent of its monetizable daily active users are fake accounts. But Musk douts that’s true. He has suggested Twitter is falsely reporting the numbers or that the company’s calculation methodology is flawed.
“We’re still awaiting a resolution on that matter, and that is a very significant matter,” Musk said in the interview.
Additionally, the Tesla CEO has concerns about debt financing as well. Of the $44 billion, he plans to pay $33.5 billion in cash and $7.1 billion in equity financing from investors. The rest of the amount will come in the form of bank loans. However, Musk has yet to ascertain how this will play out. He may be the world’s richest person but much of his wealth is tied up in Tesla stock.
“Will the debt portion of the round come together?” he concerned. The Twitter privatization saga keeps churning out interesting new episodes regularly. It remains to be seen what’s next.
2022-06-22 15:05:44