Facebook’s Instagram acquisition: the billion-dollar story – The Verge

Instagram agreed to sell to Twitter for $525 million before choosing Facebook, says NYT

2012-12-16T19:47:37-05:00

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The New York Times is reporting that Twitter had a deal in place to buy Instagram for $525 million back in March - before the photo-sharing service's CEO Kevin Systrom called the whole thing off. We've heard about Twitter's interest in Instagram before, but the revelation is particularly noteworthy given the recent spat between the two companies, not to mention Systrom's claims to California regulators that Facebook's successful $1 billion bid was the only one received.

According to the Times, Systrom and co-founder Mike Krieger had verbally agreed to sell to Twitter before finally deciding to "remain independent" on March 20th. Three weeks …

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Facebook confirms it will ‘monetize’ Instagram

2012-12-12T14:20:21-05:00

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Since Facebook acquired Instagram earlier this year, people have wondered how the service might be changing. We're still not sure, but Facebook VP of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson has confirmed that monetization is coming in some form. Talking with Business Insider, Everson avoided the question of whether ads would start appearing on the photo sharing service, but she said that "eventually we'll figure out a way to monetize Instagram." Shortly after, she reiterated that the Instagram team was still relatively small and fairly new, but maintained that it would eventually start generating funds for Facebook. "There are many brands …

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Facebook’s ‘billion dollar’ Instagram acquisition to actually cost $715 million

2012-10-24T23:11:46-04:00

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After all the dust has settled, Facebook's much-hyped "billion dollar" acquisition of photo sharing service Instagram is actually costing the company considerably less - $715 million, to be more precise. As reported by The Next Web, the value of the deal has fallen significantly thanks to Facebook's falling share price. The results were made public in the company's quarterly report; its second since its May IPO.

So far, Facebook has paid $521 million in cash and stock

So far, Facebook has already shelled out $521 million - $300 million in cash and the remainder in Class B common stock, which has ten times the voting power of Class A shares b …

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Facebook’s Instagram purchase finally complete, over 5 billion photos shared to date

2012-09-06T11:26:37-04:00

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It's been a long time coming, but Facebook's purchase of Instagram is finally a done deal - both companies just announced the finalized partnership on their respective blogs. Additionally, Instagram revealed that users have now shared over five billion photos. This finalized purchase comes a few weeks after the FTC closed its investigation into the deal, and less than a week since the state of California finished a "fairness hearing" on the proposed deal.

Due to the fact that Facebook's stock has dropped since the deal was originally announced, the value of the purchase is below the $1 billion that was originally reported - we don't know th …

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Facebook’s stock transfer to Instagram cleared by the state of California

2012-08-29T15:59:40-04:00

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Despite the fact that the FCC approved Facebook's purchase of Instagram last week, the state of California had one more final hearing on the matter - a "fairness hearing" meant to approve the transfer of Facebook stock as part of the whole deal. The hearing took place today, and the Wall Street Journal reports that California's Department of Corporations found that the deal was "fair, just, and equitable," paving the way for the sale to finally be complete. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom attended the hearing and answered questions regarding the fact that Instagram's purchase price had dropped from $1 billion to $750 million because of Facebook' …

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FTC closes Facebook / Instagram investigation, deal may ‘proceed as proposed’

2012-08-22T17:54:58-04:00

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Facebook's proposed purchase of Instagram has been cleared by the FTC, paving the way for the deal to close nearly five months after the initial announcement. This news comes a little over a week after the UK's Office of Fair Trading gave similar approval to the deal. The FTC passed the deal unanimously in a five-to-zero vote, saying that "the deal may now proceed as proposed." As Facebook has gone public since the purchase was first announced, the value of the deal is actually a good bit lower than the original estimated purchase price of $1 billion - the deal is for $300 million in cash, plus 22,999,412 shares of Facebook common stock. As …

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Facebook’s purchase of Instagram cleared by UK watchdog

2012-08-14T08:37:12-04:00

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The UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has halted its probe into Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram. OFT began to look into the purchase last month over fears that it would give Facebook an unfair advantage in the photo-sharing market. If it had found sufficient evidence it would have referred the case the UK's competition commission which could have potentially taken steps to block the takeover.

In an emailed statement, OFT says that it "has decided, on the information currently available to it, not to refer the following merger to the Competition Commission under the provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002." The probe mirrored that …

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FTC investigating Facebook / Instagram deal, says Financial Times

2012-05-10T16:30:17-04:00

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The Facebook buyout of Instagram may not happen as soon as planned. According to the Financial Times, "two people familiar with the matter" say the US Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation of the deal and is currently collecting information from Facebook's competitors. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to find any problems, and it's not unusual for the FTC to investigate deals greater than $68.2 million under current antitrust laws; the deal is still expected to be approved.

An FTC probe, however, means that Facebook probably won't be able to start using Instagram as quickly as it would like. Facebook has previously …

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Facebook reports Q1 earnings: over 900m active users, Instagram cost $300m plus 23 million shares

2012-04-23T15:31:57-04:00

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Ahead of its IPO later this year, Facebook just released an updated Form S-1 with first quarter earnings that's now available for perusal in the SEC's filing system. Revenue is up considerably year over year - $1.06 billion versus $731 million a year ago - but net income is down a tad from $233 million to $205 million. The lower profit is attributed to just about everything in Facebook's financial sheet: operating and administrative costs, marketing, and R&D. Monthly active users of the service are now reported at a whopping 901 million, up from 680 million at the end of Q1 2011. That's year-over-year growth of over 32 percent. Of those 901 …

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Mark Zuckerberg kept Facebook board out of Instagram negotiations, claims WSJ

2012-04-18T06:01:42-04:00

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How do billion-dollar deals get made in Silicon Valley? In the case of Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, the negotiation period was a mere weekend at Mark Zuckerberg's house, where he and Kevin Systrom, Instagram's cofounder and CEO, thrashed out a mutually agreeable valuation for the photo-sharing service. This is according to a Wall Street Journal report, which goes on to say that Zuckerberg informed Facebook's board of directors that he intended to spend $1 billion on Instagram on Sunday morning, April 8th, approximately 24 hours before the takeover became official. The board reportedly did vote on whether to approve the decision, but …

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