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Facebook seals Instagram buyout for roughly $715m
Despite sub-$1bn price, photo-sharing founder is 'psyched' ... bitch
Instagram founder Kevin Systrom is totally "psyched" to see his company merge with Facebook, even after the deal ended up being much lower than the initial $1bn price tag initially offered by Mark Zuckerberg.
The value of the buyout has tumbled because when Systrom agreed to Facebook's acquisition proposal back in April this year, they cut a deal that Facebook would pay partly in shares and partly in cash – which would have worked out in Systrom's favour had the shares increased in value. But late last week, when it's understood the deal closed, Facebook shares hit a new all-time low of $18.02 a share on Nasdaq.
That meant the photo filter app's makers ended up receiving $300m in hard money and a further 23 million shares in the world's largest social network, which adds up to a deal set at roughly $715m.
The takeover took time to be sealed due to regulatory clearance being needed on both sides of the Atlantic before it could progress. In the meantime, Facebook shares continued their downwards spiral.
But no matter, according to Systrom, as what's a few hundreds of millions of dollars between Web2.0 friends?
On the deal, he had this to say via, natch, his Facebook profile page:
Very excited to announce that we're now officially joining the facebook family! Instagram has continued to grow and succeed beyond what we ever imagined, and we're so proud of all the team has accomplished. I'm psyched for the next chapter of this long journey. I want to personally thank everyone in the Instagram community for the last two years of inspiration. Here's to the next two as well!
And Zuckerberg smugly agreed, by flicking the "Like" button on Systrom's post. Bless. ®