FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
Business
OIL PRICES CLIMB AFTER IMPROVED DEMAND OUTLOOK Global oil prices climbed on Thursday after the International Energy Agency raised its demand outlook for next year. The continuing geopolitical uncertainty over a diplomatic solution to Syria's chemical weapons underpinned the market, analysts said.
THE NEXT BIG THING
Twitter IPO news has tech sector in a tweet
Twitter's market value has been estimated around $10 billion based on early venture capital investments, but the initial public offering (IPO) is likely to bring a higher amount. Tweeting history
GLENN CHAPMAN feedback@postnoon.com
Twitter came to life on March 21, 2006 when co-founder Jack Dorsey's account (@jack) automatically sent out the first tweet, which read: "just setting up my twttr."
SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter announced on Thursday, in a tweet, that it has submitted papers for the most hotly anticipated stock offering in the tech sector since Facebook's last year. "We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale," the company tweeted. Moments later, in typically breezy style, the company tweeted a picture of its staffers, and said: "Now, back to work." Twitter's market value has been estimated around $10 billion based on early venture capital investments, but the initial public offering (IPO) is likely to bring a higher amount. "We expect @Twitter to price
Dorsey followed it up with the first "human-generated" tweet: "inviting coworkers." Since then, more than 170 billion tweets have gone out worldwide, and Twitter has 500 million users, according to Dashburst.com, a website that monitors the social media industry. Officially, Twitter has only said it has "well over 200 million" users. Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) has the most followers with 44,418,729, as of 2200 GMT Thursday, followed by Katy Perry (@katyperry) with 42,603,233 and Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) with 40,094,580. US President Barack Obama (@barackobama) is fourth with 36,493,643 followers; the announcement of his re-election victory in November 2012 was re-tweeted 802,624 times. The average Twitter user has 208 followers and spends 170 minutes on the site every month. There are more than 200 million active Twitter users. Eighty percent of all users access Twitter on mobile devices. China is the country with the most Twitter users with 35.5 million, according to Dashburst. About 20 million Twitter accounts are believed to be fake.
The social network started by Mark Zuckerberg, which now has more than 1.1 billion users around the globe, had a rocky debut after it went public at $38 a share in May 2012 with a valuation of $16 billion. Facebook shares fell below $20 over the past year and only climbed back over their offer price in July.
LINKEDIN The social network for professionals and job-hunters, LinkedIn has been one of the biggest stars of the technology sector since turning to Wall Street in May 2011. Shares of LinkedIn more than doubled from their offer price of $45 on the first day of trading. LinkedIn, launched in 2003,
VODAFONE BUYS KABEL
LONDON: Shareholders of German cable operator Kabel Deutschland on Thursday gave the go-ahead for a 7.7 billion euro ($10 billion) takeover by Vodafone after clearing the 75 percent acceptance hurdle, both companies announced. "Vodafone announces... that the 75 per cent minimum acceptance condition has been met," the British company said in a statement. As a pre-requisite of the deal Vodafone needed to secure at least 75 percent of shares to succeed. Vodafone added it would publish the final proportion of shares offered on September 16. Kabel Deutschland also confirmed the shareholders' decision.
NUMEROLOGY
$8
#IPO conservatively at 20-30x revenue, or $15 billion, with about $500 million in revenue," said a tweet from the private company research firm PrivCo. The firm added in another tweet: "Unlike $FB (Facebook)
which waited too long to IPO (growth rate decelerated) Twitter will IPO at just the right inflection point." Lou Kerner at the Social Internet Fund, said he expects a big reaction from investors. AFP
The IPO craze FACEBOOK
13
closed at $249.70 on Thursday.
Canada and western Europe.
GROUPON
PANDORA
Online daily deals sensation Groupon went public in November 2011, raising $700 million in what at the time was the biggest initial public offering by an Internet company since Google.
YELP Shares of restaurant and business review website Yelp have soared since the San Francisco-based company went public in March 2012 with a $15 initial public offering price. Yelp shares closed at $63.77 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. Yelp, founded in 2004, offers user-generated reviews of service businesses by city across the US
Internet radio Pandora made its Wall Street debut in June 2011, raising $235 million with stock priced at $16 a share. Pandora, which creates personalised radio stations for users based upon their favorite artists or songs, traded below its offer price until recently but closed at $23.97 on Thursday.
GOLD`29,815 10g SILVER `49,955 1kg
24C
COMPENSATION TALKS GENEVA: A two-day meeting of high street clothing brands and pressure groups aimed at reaching a compensation deal for victims of two Bangladesh factory disasters ended in failure, organisers said. The Geneva talks came after a building housing garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh in April, killing more than 1,100 people. They were aimed at agreeing compensation for the families of those victims and those of other factory disasters. Campaign groups that organised the meeting said only around a third of the firms invited had even turned up.
THUS SPAKE
ZYNGA Online gamemaker Zynga was valued at $7 billion when it made its play on the stock market in December 2011. But the company behind Facebook games such as FarmVille has been on a losing streak since then. Zynga shares closed at $3.02 on Thursday.
for
for
DOLLAR `63.82 POUND `100.72
bn
is the estimated value of the shares Disney plans on buying back in 2014. That would double the size of Disney buybacks in recent years.
@edhenryTV: How excited is everyone that we're all getting shares in the @Twitter #IPO woot #retirement !! wait what ... ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
BSE NSE
19,745.40 37.55
5,845.25 4.55