It’s no secret that Twitter (TWTR) has become a colossal failure. It’s hard not to look back on the days when its shares were cresting $70 a share and say, “What were we thinking?” Who knows what potential investors saw in the social media platform, but it sadly never came to fruition.
The company’s stock took another huge hit on Tuesday when the site experienced global outages for about ten hours. And while Facebook saw a few outages over the last few months, it seems as if Twitter’s was the straw that broke the camel’s back for investors. Shares dropped 7% for the day and are down another 4% in pre-market trading on Wednesday, as of this writing, to an all-time low of $16.02.
Shareholder anger has gotten to the point where some investors have suggested that the company delist its stock from the New York Stock Exchange and go private again. For Twitter’s purposes, let’s discuss why they should and shouldn’t consider it.
Why it should
Twitter is by no means in danger of having its stock delisted involuntarily. But the main reason why it should consider doing it voluntarily is so that it can really focus on its product. The shareholder obsession over the last few years has been user growth. And since Twitter can’t seem to deliver, it’s putting more and more focus into trying to figure out its user growth problem rather than improving its platform and revenue.
Companies succeed when they put drivers before solutions, but Twitter has been so focused on solving the user growth problem that it’s ignored the fundamental things that drive it. Delisting would remove the pressure from shareholders and let the company focus on what it wants to focus on.
Why it shouldn’t
When a stock is delisted, the transition isn’t seamless. The equity market is a way for a company to raise capital for future investments. Also, delisting can have a negative effect with debt financing, potentially triggering a downgraded credit rating, and thus increasing interest expenses.
Leave A Comment