Microsoft To Buy LinkedIn For $26.2B In Cash, Makes Big Move Into Enterprise Social Media

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Huge news today in the world of M&A in enterprise and social networking services:Microsoft has announced that it is acquiring LinkedIn, the social network for professionals with some 433 million users, for $26 billion, or $196 per share, in cash. The transaction has already been approved by both boards.

The $196 offer is a big hike on its closing price from Friday, $131.08. (And in premarket trading, unsurprisingly, it’s nearly crept up 64% to reach the share price MSFT is paying.)

LinkedIn is keeping its branding and product, and it will become a part of Microsoft’s productivity and business processes segment. LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner will report to Satya Nadella.

The acquisition is a big one for both sides.

For Microsoft, it’s bringing a key, missing piece into the company’s strategy to build out more services for enterprises. Today, the company is focused squarely on software (and some hardware by way of its very downsized phones business). LinkedIn will give it a far bigger reach in terms of social networking services and professional content — developing further along the lines of the communications products that it spearheaded with its acquisition of Yammer. It will give it a potential sales channel to sell more of its products, and will serve as a complement to those that it already offers for collaboration and communication.

“The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the world’s professionals,” Nadella said in a statement. “Together we can accelerate the growth ofLinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet.”

For LinkedIn, it puts to rest questions of how the company would ever compete with companies that are building more software on top of their social graphs that would put it into closer competition against LinkedIn. For a while, it looked like this was the direction that LinkedIn hoped to develop, but more recent problems with user and revenue growth, and a subsequent dropping share price, has put the company on the defensive.

“Just as we have changed the way the world connects to opportunity, this relationship withMicrosoft, and the combination of their cloud and LinkedIn‘s network, now gives us a chance to also change the way the world works,” Weiner added in the statement. “For the last 13 years, we’ve been uniquely positioned to connect professionals to make them more productive and successful, and I’m looking forward to leading our team through the next chapter of our story.”

But this is not at all a story about a failing company getting scooped up on the way down for parts. LinkedIn, even with a share price that is below its 12-month high point of $258/share, is one of the better performing of tech companies in the public markets.

Microsoft has never been a massively successful company when it comes to social networking — although it smartly invested in Facebook before it went public. But this will give it its own foothold in this area.

LinkedIn is active in over 200 countries and has 105 million monthly active users, with 433 million registered overall. The company has some 60% of all traffic on mobile, and — thanks to some strong SEO — a crazy 45 billion quarterly page views. It’s also one of the biggest repositories of job listings, with some 7 million active listings currently. While some parts of LinkedIn’s business has stagnated, specifically with MAU growth (which is up only 9% on last year) latter is a growing business — up 101% on a year ago.

LinkedIn’s core business is based today around recruitment ads and, to a lesser extend, premium subscriptions for users. The recruitment business (termed “Talent Solutions”) accounted for $2 billion of the company’s $3 billion in revenues in 2015.

And as you can see from the photo above, Reid Hoffman, one of the co-founders and current chairman, is behind the deal.

“Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn. I see incredible opportunity for our members and customers and look forward to supporting this new and combined business,” said Hoffman in a statement. “I fully support this transaction and the Board’s decision to pursue it, and will vote my shares in accordance with their recommendation on it.”

The companies are hosting a conference call at 8.45AM Pacific time. Below is the presentation deck they will use:

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/microsoft-to-buy-linkedin-for-26b-in-cash-makes-big-move-into-enterprise-social-media/

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