[tommoor]

This article was definitely interesting reading for someone that knows nothing about acquisitions, not so much for the particular fate of Instagram but for the details of how stock/cash deals can work and the stock collar possibilities...

[slantyyz]

During the first bubble, one of the companies I worked for used just about all of their IPO money to buy another company.

The buzz was that the owner of the company being bought refused to take any stock and only took cash (smart move), and within a month or two of the purchase, most of the acquired people had already left. The company I had worked for ended up selling the remaining assets for something like 1/40th of what they paid a year later.

Considering my company's stock price tanked on day one of the IPO and continued to go down, the only winner in that deal was the guy who took cash for his company.