VCs have a saying “we all make money or no one makes money”. All right, so that’s not the real saying… but the idea is: once the VCs make their dough back, then the entrepreneurs can get their money out, too.
There’s also a saying, to the tune of “everyone is equal but some are more equal than others”. That’s from Animal Farm, a story of the Communism Revolution depicting pigs. It’s funny that the animal of choice is the pig because when it comes to investing, we’re all greedy pigs, I presume. continue reading...
The following is from SAI, about Fox Interactive Media’s revenues:
- Branded revenue is up 21% over last year and branded sell-through is trending up for the year with a 19% increase from Q1 to Q3. continue reading...
One of the reasons Yahoo! should go private is because it could then manage for the long-term, instead of worrying about quarterly expectations of short-term minded investors and analysts.
The problem is that Microsoft threw a curve ball by launching a $44.6B takeover bid, which represented a 62% premium to Yahoo!’s share price before the deal was announced. continue reading...
The following is a perpetual-work-in-progress. Once you start to compile a list of mergers and acquisitions, you realize why it’s nearly impossible to have a complete list. We are quite confident that the following is a very good, comprehensive list of the largest, more notable deals… but it is not - and no list will be - fully complete because there are too many countries around the world and too many industries to report (it is highly possible that the Wall Street Journal or Financial Post, for example, has such a list… but it would be thick and unwieldy).
We have included: continue reading...
Editor’s note: I knew we were speaking too soon. One more deal to add to the list: Time Warner to buy Quigo. Added to the bottom of the list, under ad networks.
According to The Jordan Edmiston Group Inc.’s October 2007 Client Briefing report, the number of deals through the first three quarters of 2007 exceeded full year 2006 figures: 637 transactions with $95B in value thus far. Do the math and that is $150M per deal, quite rich. continue reading...
According to Silicon Alley Insider:
NY-based social networking/photo sharing site Fotolog has been acquired by Hi-Media Group for a combination of cash and stock worth $90 million. France-based Hi-Media adds Fotolog to its growing portfolio, which includes an ad network and a micro-payments business. continue reading...
Today News Corp. made it official: Fox Interactive Media Agrees to Acquire Photobucket and Flektor, Inc.
A couple of years ago, Rupert Murdoch told the world that he was earmarking $2B to invest in digital media, technology etc. He then made a series of deals, effectively becoming my boss in the process: continue reading...
Generally speaking, Michael Arrington is a smart fella, but when he penned “Photobucket was a steal (compared to YouTube)”, I thought he was crazy. Thankfully, a lot of people on his comments board pointed out to the fact that no one actually visits PB, while YouTube they did.
If you want a visual demonstration was PB is anything but a destination and is rather a glorified Web 2.0 hosting company, check out their main page: continue reading...
Apparently, Valleywag is reporting that Photobucket sold to MySpace and the staff will learn about it in 20 minutes at 1pm EST/10am PST.
Note that Photobucket leaked some lofty revenue figures earlier this year to test market sentiment about a price tag of $300-400M. We respectfully disagreed, mainly because those revenue increases seemed way too aggressive. continue reading...
Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer joined forces to moderate and tag team a nice panel on dealmaking, Yahoo!’s Toby Coppel and former Fox Interactive Media CEO Ross Levinsohn were no-shows, FIM’s Mike Lang was kind enough to step in and pinch-hit, and he added a lot of good intel.
Anyway, the roll call: continue reading...
