Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he has secured 46.5 billion dollars to acquire Twitter and will publicly buy Twitter shares.
Musk said in a public announcement on the 21st (local time) that he is considering buying Twitter publicly for $54.20 per share.
Musk has decided to raise $25.5 billion of the acquisition funds through bank debt. Nearly half of them, or $12.5 billion, are Tesla stock collateral loans.
Earlier on the 13th, he submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and proposed the acquisition of Twitter for $54.20 per share.
He declared that he would take over Twitter through a public purchase of shares, saying he had received funding promises from investment banks and others. There are 12 financial institutions that provide funding, including Morgan Stanley in the U.S., Bank of America (BoA), Barclays in the U.K., Mitsubishi UFG Financial Group (MUFG) and Mizuho Bank in Japan, Societe Generale in France and BNF Paribar.
When Musk revealed his hostile merger and acquisition plan, Twitter mobilized “Poison Peel” (poison prescription) last week. Poison Peel is a defense measure to prevent hostile mergers and acquisitions, and if a hostile takeover attempt comes in, it can issue new shares to existing shareholders at a lower price than the market price only by the board of directors’ resolution.
Meanwhile, while Musk’s attempt to acquire Twitter is drawing attention from private equity funds, Apollo Global Management, which is considering participating in the acquisition, is reportedly considering cooperating with Musk and others.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s share price rose 0.77 percent to $47.08 from the previous trading day.
