Snapchat Could Be Sold To Facebook, Analyst Tells Clients

Facebook has a growing list of companies it owns, but Snapchat isn’t one... yet. An analyst at FBN Securities, a New York City stock broker, wrote in an email to clients Wednesday that he believes Facebook would “love to acquire” Snapchat, if the price were right, according to Business Insider. The analyst, Shebly Seyrafi, said in the same email that he thinks Facebook would be willing to spend $14/share.

Facebook Inc. owns Instagram, the photo sharing app that is proving to be a Snap Inc. competitor. Instagram added “stories” much like Snapchat stories last summer, and even added “stickers” and filters like Snapchat’s geotags. On Thursday Facebook introduced “Messenger Day” a story clone within it messaging app, something WhatsApp (another Facebook acquisition) has as well. Meanwhile, Snapchat blamed slowing user growth on technical issues, but many think the competition from Instagram is the start of Snap’s downfall.

Snap Inc. went public in early March debuting on the market at $24/share, far higher than the initial offering of $17/share, but the shares fell 12 percent less than a week after. It’s currently hovering around $22/share.

Facebook and Snapchat have previously discussed the possibility of an acquisition in 2013, it ended in Snapchat turning down a $3 billion offer. If Facebook were to eventually purchase Snapchat at $14/share, that would be a total cost of about $20 billion. But for now the two companies remain in competition.

Facebook went public in 2012 with an initial public offering of $38/share, with the first trade at $42/share. But its launch was fraught with lawsuits after technical difficulties on NASDAQ’s part lead to a delayed opening and stuck offers. Facebook's stock took a dip after it came on the market and didn’t make it back up to its initial price offering until August 2013, from then on it’s climbed steadily, with each share today at $138.