Twitter shares soared the most in more than two years on Friday after CNBC said the company may soon receive a takeover offer.
The beleaguered social media company is engaged in conversations with potential suitors that are said to include Salesforce.com and Google, among others, CNBC said without citing its sources.
Twitter may get a formal offer shortly, sources told CNBC.
Speculation that Twitter is ripe for a sale has been swirling for months as the company has failed to lure new users, leading to several quarters of stagnant growth and a plummeting stock. The shares were down almost 20% this year before the surge on Friday. The shares were up 18% to US$21,99 at 9.38am in New York.
Microsoft’s $26,2bn purchase in June of LinkedIn sparked new conjecture on likely candidates for Twitter. Salesforce, which lost out to Microsoft in the bid for LinkedIn, has remained among those seen as candidates, as has Google.
Vala Afshar, whose LinkedIn profile says he is the chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, put out a tweet after the CNBC report that hinted at the company’s interest.
“Why @Twitter? 1 Personal learning network; 2 the best realtime, context rich news; 3 democratize intelligence; 4 great place to promote others,” the tweet said. — (c) 2016 Bloomberg LP
