Watch Twitter shares which climbed more than 21% on Friday after it was confirmed that Google and Salesforce.com had been sniffing round the underperforming social media platform owner.
Friday night’s surge took the shares to a close of $US22.62 (valuing it at just under $US16 billion), but well short of the IPO price of $US26.
Friday’s rise just about erased the loss for the stock so far in 2016.
CNBC reported that the California-based company could receive a bid for a sale, adding that suitors included Salesforce and Google.
Despite co-founder Jack Dorsey’s return to Twitter last year, the company has struggled with user growth that has lagged behind rival social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
But Dorsey remained CEO of the payments company, Square, which he also founded and there have been media reports in the past fortnight that he hasn’t been fully engaged at Twitter, leading to claims that the company was drifting and not doing as much as it can to revitalise its offerings to users.
Twitter has worked to boost its performance, especially in its live video content, purchasing Periscope and Magic Pony.
News earlier this year that Microsoft would buy LinkedIn for $US26 billion had prompted renewed speculation that Twitter could be taken over. Twitter is best known for its little birdie symbol and its 140-character tweets — has reportedly been working for several weeks with Goldman Sachs (which helped float the stock bakc in 2014) and Allen & Co to explore a sale of the company.
The Financial Times reported that Goldman has also contacted a number of global media companies to gauge their interest in a potential deal but none have expressed serious interest.
Analysts say media companies such as Fox, Comcast, CBS and Walt Disney could be potential buyers of the site, which recently reclassified itself as a news app in the app store.
Twitter’s monthly user numbers have been stuck at around 300 to 330 million, a fraction of the 1.7 billion using Facebook and the more than 1 billion using Snapchat.
