[Riod]

If it is an early stage company that has the ability to not just increase revenue/customer but also total number of customers.

Also the competition in the bidding process matters. There are a limited number of players who can/will swallow an acquisition this size. Public companies never get bought for these numbers. Why would Google bid that when a 30-40% premium would be enough for most shareholders to vote yes?

On twitter itself, I feel the quote, "clown car that fell into a goldmine" attributed to mark zuckerberg is pretty appropriate.

[karangoeluw]

I don't have numbers, but a lot of shareholders are still out of the money - they bought when the price was climbing from ~40 to the peak of 70.

I doubt that a 40% premium will be enough. But I can see your skepticism. A lot of acquisitions never make sense.

[Riod]

It would most likely not get past Google's board. And investors would crucify them for paying that kind of premium for a stalled social network (aka don't get the incremental benefits of growth via network effects). They would be left with 1) increase revenue/user or 2) cut costs.

Periscope doesn't fulfill the "toothbrush" principle, aka stuff that you use every day. That's how Google does M&A. Their corporate development people have talked about it publicly.

Also, the shares turnover every 26 days given that about 26MM shares trade every day. Hard to say that a majority of the shareholder base would not accept a 40% premium.