Microsoft Eyes Pinterest Acquisition For $50 Billion

Microsoft has been working on another multi-billion dollar acquisition in the past few months. The Redmond wanted to swallow the social media service Pinterest. However, the negotiations are currently not going any further.

For some time now, Microsoft management has been exploring where to move forward with larger takeovers. The purchase from the game company Bethesda worked, but the entry into the Chinese video service TikTok was not successful. The next heavyweight on the agenda was Pinterest – the company is currently valued at around $ 51 billion.

The British business newspaper Financial Times reports on the efforts of the Redmond company and refers to informed circles. However, it is not immediately clear what plans Microsoft might have pursued here. After all, there seems to be little where Pinterest could be docked directly with Microsoft.

Strong growth

However, the popular image hosting company has seen an enormous upswing in the past few months. In the fourth quarter, the number of monthly active users rose to 459 million – 37 percent more than in the same period last year. Like various other social media companies, Pinterest also benefits from the fact that real-world contacts are limited due to the corona pandemic and that many people network via corresponding online offers.

In the course of the last year, the company wants to have gained around a hundred million new active users. But that also meant that the share price had increased by a factor of seven since March last year. In the end, this could have been the decisive factor in Microsoft’s first showing interest, but then moving away again. Especially since the Pinterest management also indicated that they were not exactly interested in a takeover – which could have led to a more heated argument.