Twitter’s stock declined more than 18 percent in early Thursday trading after reports that Walt Disney and Google won’t submit bids for the social media company.
Disney, which reportedly considered a possible Twitter bid, has decided not to pursue the company, Recode had reported after the stock market close on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the situation.
It also said that Google, which some Wall Street observers had called a logical buyer for Twitter and which reportedly had also explored a play for the firm, was not going to bid. Recode added that fellow technology giant Apple was unlikely to make an offer as well.
That for now seems to leave cloud computing firm Salesforce.com as the only potential suitor of Twitter, even though the company has never publicly confirmed its interest in a deal. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appeared on CNBC on Wednesday and declined to comment directly on the firm’s interest in Twitter.
Other potential suitors that some observers have mentioned include Microsoft and Verizon.
Twitter shares had dropped 9 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday after closing the day 5.7 percent higher. Over the past year, Twitter’s stock has traded between $13.73 and $31.87. As of 10:45 a.m. ET, the stock was trading at $20.31, down 18.3 percent.
San Francisco-based Twitter, led by CEO Jack Dorsey, has been the subject of takeover speculation in recent days as stalled growth over the last year has affected its stock price. Dorsey, who replaced outgoing CEO Dick Costolo last summer and was named to the permanent CEO position in early October 2015, has not been able to significantly turn the tide.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Steven Cahall wrote in a Thursday report about Walt Disney that given “some investor angst over management succession and potentially transformative M&A, we think an overhang will stick with Disney [shares] a while longer.”
