News Corp says Twitter takeover rumours 'untrue'
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has denied reports it is looking to acquire Twitter despite the social media company's recent share price weakness.
News Corp Class A
$26.60
06:15 24/09/24
Twitter Inc
$53.70
11:00 08/08/24
After a rumours that News Corp was building a stake built to a crescendo overnight, Twitter’s shares flew as much as 14% higher from the record low reached in the wake of its outage earlier in the week.
The unconfirmed chatter was intensified by a segment on CNBC on Wednesday where Twitter was evaluated as a takeover target.
Bloomberg reporter Alex Barinka tweeted out that there was a sizeable purchase of Twitter shares around the time the rumours began to gain steam.
Oh hi Twitter. Looks like there was a ~$4.4 million trade at 1:35pm at $17.757/share. $TWTR pic.twitter.com/03Rnj6dX40
— Alex Barinka (@alexbarinka) January 20, 2016
But later last night, News Corp spokesperson Jim Kennedy told website Re/code: “The rumor’s untrue.”
Nevertheless, Jasper Lawler at CMC Markets speculated that Twitter shares "could be active again" on Thursday.
Wife: Did you ever buy $TWTR? Me: Yup; at $19ish, $18ish, $17ish... Wife: Cool; it will definitely go back up. Me (inner monologue): Yikes.
— Todd Harrison (@todd_harrison) January 20, 2016