Twitter: 140 characters in search of a buyer
Why doesn't anyone want to buy Twitter? After the company's board met on Thursday, it told CNBC that there were "no bids on the table" and that instead it was exploring cost cuts - an announcement that drove another sell-off in the stock and pushed it down 6%, as shareholders who had hoped to see a September swoop from a tech or media company were disappointed. On Friday the shares were changing hands at around $18 - 20% down this year and well short of their float price of $26 three years ago.
That doesn't mean, however, that Twitter is not a target. It can boast 313 million monthly active users, of whom 66 million, or 21%, are in the US. But unlike that other social network Facebook, its growth has stalled (user numbers were up just 1% year-on-year in the quarter to the end of June), and it is far from profit, losing $107m on revenues of $602m - although the latter, at least, were up an encouraging 20%.
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