in the perfect kick off to another long
work week two of the emblems of
corporate drudgery have decided to join
forces what is the deal linkedin best
known for this annoying contact requests
from people you barely met a year ago in
a meeting is being bought by microsoft
the famed creator of excel word outlook
and powerpoint and everything you hate
about charting on your computer the deal
value is 26 billion dollars linkedin
went public in 2011 and its shares had
soared as high as two hundred and sixty
nine dollars but concerns about rapidly
slowing growth and a lack of profits led
to its shares following as low as 100
dollars per share the Microsoft deal at
196 dollars is a nice recovery compared
to those depths the company wants to be
at the forefront of so-called
productivity and collaboration although
software things you do at work it
believes it can integrate linkedin into
its software offerings and so office
workers can be more efficient or useful
still Microsoft doesn't have a strong
record in acquisitions and tech M&A is
notoriously tricky Microsoft's vast war
chest for better or worse does allow it
to make big bets the company has a
market capitalization of 400 billion
dollars and a cash balance of one
hundred billion dollars because interest
rates for mean low it can buy linkedin
for a big premium without its earnings
being diluted very much while Facebook
continues to thrive the rest of the
industry is struggling quite a bit
twitter shares however did rally five
percent on monday because there is hope
that there is another big dumb tech
company willing to spend tens of
billions of dollars to rescue it we
shall see this decision in depth
Financial Times New York news the Warren
Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway has
invested over a billion dollars in Apple
has prompted questions about both buyer
and target