In an SEC filing today, Elon Musk indicated that Twitter has yet to respond to his offer to buy the company, and that he is “exploring whether to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares.” Recall that Twitter has itself adopted a poison-pill defense of its equity in light of Musk’s unsolicited bid.
The filing also details how Musk intends to pay for Twitter. Recall that his offer is worth $54.20 per share in cash, valuing the company at around $43.4 billion. The serial entrepreneur’s bid represents a premium to Twitter’ value today, but lands far beneath the company’s 52-week stock market high of $73.34 per share; shares of Twitter traded even higher in early 2021, leaving some room for Musk’s bid to be considered modest, despite its present-day premium.
So where will all that money come from? Three major buckets, it turns out:
- The first tranche, per the filing, comes from Morgan Stanley and “certain other financial institutions” that have “committed to provide $13 billion in financing” to Musk in the form of a $6.5 billion “senior secured term loan facility,” a $500 million “senior secured revolving facility,” a $3 billion “senior secured bridge loan facility” and a $3 billion “senior unsecured bridge loan facility.”