Twitter (TWTR) Sale: Takeover Bids Expected This Week, Salesforce, Google, Walt Disney In The Running

Over the last two weeks, there has been a lot of talk about Twitter considering selling itself, and companies including Google, Salesforce and Walk Disney are said to be interested in buying it. And a Tuesday report said the popular social media platform was expected to receive bids this week.

That Twitter is up for sale was most recently suggested by longtime investor Chris Sacca, who told Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday he had been selling his shares in Twitter and was hoping for the company to be acquired.

“I hope for an acquisition. I think there are some great product teams this [Twitter] fits in with naturally. And that’s not a new thing for me, I have been saying this for a long time. I think it’s a natural complement to at least four or five companies out there,” Sacca said. He also mentioned Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Disney as good fits.

The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources who said Twitter will receive bids from various companies this week. As recently as two weeks ago, Google and Salesforce were already said to be interested in buying the company, while Disney’s desire to acquire Twitter was reported a couple of days later. Bloomberg reported Sept. 30 that Google was working with financial adviser Lazard to prepare its bid.

Sacca said he didn’t expect the company to fetch a higher valuation than its current stock price. As of Tuesday’s market closing, Twitter market capitalization was $17.33 billion.

However, Twitter may still choose to not accept any bids, especially if it considers the bids lower than its own perceived valuation, in which case it will continue to remain independent.

Salesforce, which lost out to Microsoft in the acquisition of professional networking platform LinkedIn, is said to be extremely keen to diversify beyond its cloud services and CEO Marc Bernioff is reportedly very eager to buy Twitter.

Twitter shares closed 2 percent lower, at $23.52, on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, but gained 3.87 percent during after-hours trade.