Facebook, the largest social network in the world, is to file IPO papers after dodging the option of going public since its conception in 2004.
Starting out as The Facebook-- a site for Harvard’s students to connect, Facebook soon became well known and grew beyond the university, and with growth, it attracted investors and offers of acquisition. According to the business and financial research firm, PrivCo, these are the companies that once wanted to buy Facebook.
1. Friendster: Being the first social network in the world created in 2002, it was interested in making a purchase of Facebook in August 2004, for $10 million. Facebook rejected the deal, and Friendster later redesigned itself as a social gaming site. Another undisclosed financier company in New York also made an offer to buy Facebook the same year, for the same amount.
2. Washington Post Company: Most well-known for the newspaper it runs (which bears the same name), the American education and media company attempted to acquire Facebook a year after it was made universal, for $1.4 billion.
3. Viacom: Video & Audio Communications, the fourth largest media conglomerate company in the world made an offer to buy Facebook first in March 2005 for $75 million.
It then made two other offers, in February 2006 for $1.4
billion dollars, and in March of the same year for an undisclosed amount.
4. MySpace: This social network, which was very popular around 2004, reportedly was in talks with Facebook in 2005. However, Facebook over took it by 2008, according to rankings on Alexa (which is a web information company owned by Amazon) rankings.5. NBC Universal: This American Media and Entertainment Company was in talks with Facebook for acquisition of the social network, and like the Washington Post Company went on to settle for shares. However, the amount offered was not disclosed, and the status of the deal still is mentioned as being “in talks” on the
6. News Corporation: In January 2006, the News Corporation, owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch also tried to talk Facebook into acquisition for an unspecified amount.
7. Yahoo: This display-advertising giant, which recently was overtaken by Facebook tried to buy it for $1 billion first in June, brought down its offer to $850 million the next month(due to its drop in market value, according to a report on Mashable), and then unsuccessfully talked to the social network about $1.01 billion deal all in 2006.
8. Microsoft: this software giant signed a large advertising deal with Facebook after its inability to buy Zuckerberg’s network for $15 billion in 2007.
9. Elevation Partners: This private equity firm which focuses on large-scale investments in media and technology businesses succeeded in getting around 1 percent of Facebook’s shares via a secondary market for $20 a share. It purchased $90 million worth shares in 2009.
| Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter |
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