I don’t claim to be a mergers and acquisitions expert but it looks like Google’s been buying its groceries at the convenience store. In other words, paying way more than necessary for what it wants.
According to an SEC filing that Motorola Mobility released yesterday, Google made an initial offer of $30 per share on August 1st, but soon raised that bid to $37 per share on August 9th, after Moto and its advisers asked for $43.50. On that same day, Google again raised its offer to $40 per share, even though Motorola wasn’t accepting bids from other firms, for fear that a public auction would jeopardize its sale. This 33 percent increase ultimately added some $3 billion to the pot, bringing the final price tag to $12.5 billion.
Of course, Google has a lot of money so, hell, let ’em pay whatever they want. Who am I to judge? I’m not Google’s mom. Google doesn’t have a mom. How did this conversation get sidetracked? Google’s mom? What am I talking about?
Anyway! What this shows is that Google was desperate to own Motorola, to control a handset maker, to enter the hardware arena for mobile in a big way. Now they got it and we get to see what they’ll do with it.
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