Over the last few weeks, reports of potential suitors eyeing Twitter for a takeover have sent the social network’s stock skyrocketing, up roughly 35% from about $18 in mid-September to as high as $25 yesterday (Oct. 5).
But in after-hours trading last night, Twitter’s shares started plummeting back to Earth. The drop followed a report in Recode debunking recent rumors that both Google and Disney were going to bid on the company. The stock opened at $20.46 this morning, down roughly 18% from its close yesterday.
Recode also reported that Apple was unlikely to make a bid, leaving only one other rumored suitor, Salesforce, in the mix. According to The New York Times, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, speaking yesterday in San Francisco at his company’s annual Dreamforce conference, aimed to dispel investor concerns about a potential deal for Twitter. Twitter has a market cap of roughly $16 billion, and Salesforce, which is not profitable, has a market cap of roughly $46 billion—Twitter would be the company’s most expensive acquisition by far. “We look at a lot of things,” Benioff said at the meeting, without confirming or denying the company’s interest in Twitter. “The number we acquire is very few.”
Twitter apparently wants to wrap up any potential sale by its next earnings call, slated for Oct. 27. This does not leave a lot of time for interested parties, if there are any left, to kick the tires, get their paperwork in order, and submit a bid.