Yahoo Owner Apollo Global Eyes Bid for Twitter

Apollo Global Management is thinking about taking part in a bid for Twitter, a Wall Street Journal report said Monday (April 18).

This comes after the $43 billion bid from Elon Musk, the current richest man in the world and the CEO of Tesla.

Twitter, despite being a popular platform, has had issues trying to grow, the report said.

Apollo is one of the biggest buyout firms in the world. It has held discussions already about backing a potential deal for Twitter. That could give Musk or someone else equity or debt to support its offer, the report said.

Apollo owns Yahoo. The company has been looking into potential ways to cooperate between Yahoo and Twitter, though there’s no indication that Twitter would be going along with that.

Twitter is likely to reject Musk’s offer in the next few days, and the company is set to report earnings April 28, when it might go into its stance in more detail.

Apollo’s interest comes as there’s more interest from Wall Street big companies, which are lining up to make deals for Twitter.

The report from WSJ says there are other companies like Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, that are also interested. However, no confirmation exists yet that any private equity firm will make a firm bid for any part of Twitter.

The report says taking Twitter private would be one of the bigger leveraged buyouts in history. The company also does not come with the attributes of a usual LBO target, such as strong, stable cash flow.

See also: Twitter Seeks to Block Elon Musk From Upping Stake

PYMNTS wrote that there’s been action Twitter has taken to make sure Musk couldn’t increase his stake a lot in the company.

Twitter had reportedly adopted a poison pill to make it harder for Musk to go beyond the 15% ownership threshold. A poison pill, a term coined in the 1980s by law firms, is intended to protect companies from corporate raiders.

Musk said earlier this month that he held over 9% in investments in the social media company.