The news is that Yahoo's board will meet on Sunday to decide whether to approve a $1.1 billion all-cash offer for New York-based social blogging platform Tumblr. The reported price tag for Tumblr would be one of the biggest acquisition deals in tech history. By comparison, Facebook bought photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion, but due to Facebook's stock troubles, the final price Facebook paid was $741 million.
But is Tumblr worth it over $1 billion? On its homepage Friday morning, Tumblr lists that its service has nearly 108 million blogs with over 50 billion posts. But then Tumblr only made $13 million in revenue in 2012.
Still, some sday the deal makes sense. Jim Edwards in Business Insider says it would position Yahoo as a social media company, right up there with Facebook and Google. "Sure, users have blogs on which they post things. But once you're a Tumblr user, you find that the real fun of Tumblr is building a news feed that only you can see from other users you like. Want an all-skateboarding-all-the-time news feed? Tumblr. As members begin to follow each other, they start messaging each other. The real party on Tumblr is going on behind the dashboard, not on the blogs' outer faces. That party is why Tumblr has become so big among young people – it's basically a cool social hangout that their parents haven't figured out yet. Tumblr's dashboard feeds are obviously easy to monetize in the future, just as Facebook and Instagram's friend feeds are and will be."
But then marketing specialists have told AdWeek that Tumblr would fit better with Facebook. And if Facebook decide to bid for it, Yahoo could end up paying $2 billion.
With the search ending for bodies following the garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh – the death toll now stands 1127 – a number of prominent US companies are refusing to sign any accord that would make factories in Bangladesh safer.
Reuters reports that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, says it does not plan to sign the accord because it believes its own stepped-up safety inspection plans will get faster results. And Gap says it's concerned about the potential legal consequences. Gap says it won't join the European pact without changes to the way conflicts are resolved in the courts.
The US companies are out on their own. At least 24 retailers including Hennes & Mauritz AB and Inditex SA each agreed to contribute as much as US$2.5-million over five years toward the cost of improving fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The companies, also including Marks & Spencer Group Plc, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and Associated British Foods Plc's Primark, will pay as much as US$500,000 a year over the five-year term of an agreement.
The question is how long they will refuse to sign. They're already coming under pressure from investors with a release, undersigned by Amalgamated Bank Longview Funds and 14 others saying, "We expect companies in our portfolios to ensure the integrity of their supply chains." That group holds $1.35 trillion in assets, not exactly something the retailers can ignore.
Remember the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Pearl Harbor moment of a financial crisis in 2008 that, over the next few months, threatened to bring down the entire US financial system and global economy. Well, it seems people are making money out of the investment bank's corpse.
Bloomberg reports that managers of the bank's estate are suing retirement homes, colleges and hospitals for millions of dollars, claiming they were shortchanged by scores of nonprofits that were forced to pay to exit derivatives that were unwound after the firm filed for Chapter 11 protection.
The estate has also sued Intel accusing the chip maker of seizing $1 billion in collateral in breach of a swap agreement. The swap agreement was executed days before Lehman filed for bankruptcy in 2008, Under this deal, Intel gave $1 billion to a derivatives unit of Lehman Brothers in exchange for 50.5 million Intel shares, to be delivered on the settlement date of September 29, 2008, Then Lehman Brothers went broke so Intel terminated the agreement two weeks after the company's bankruptcy filing on September 15, 2008, and seized the entire $1 billion in collateral. Lehman is now suing Intel to get the money back.
So the dessicated corpse of the bank that went bust in September 2008 and helped plunge the U.S. into a recession and the world into a financial crisis is still out there stumbling around, trying to get money out of everyone.
