Facebook accused of breaking antitrust laws, could be forced to divest WhatsApp and Instagram, C3.ai jumps over 130% in market debut, Wish plans to price shares between $22 and $24, and more

 

Facebook accused of breaking antitrust laws, could be forced to divest WhatsApp and Instagram

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys from 48 of the 50 United States filed two separate antitrust lawsuits against the social media monolith. The lawsuits stated that over an 18-month investigation, Facebook’s purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram monopolized the social media market and eliminated potential competition. According to the prosecutors, Facebook should divest WhatsApp and Instagram and the company should incur new restrictions on future deals.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, described this attempted breakup of the company as an “existential” threat. According to the New York Times, Facebook will aggressively defend itself against these accusations. “The most important fact in this case, which the commission does not mention in its 53-page complaint, is that it cleared these acquisitions years ago,” Jennifer Newstead, Facebook’s general counsel, said in a statement. “The government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final.”

C3.ai jumps over 130% in market debut

C3.ai, an AI software company, made its market debut on Wednesday morning with shares trading at $100 per share. C3.ai was launched in 2009 by Tom Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems which was acquired by Oracle in 2006 for $6 billion. C3.ai, over the past year, has partnered up with Microsoft, who profited handsomely on the IPO, to deliver enterprise AI to the energy industry.

The first trade valued the company at 100% above its IPO pricing. C3.ai’s first day gains skyrocketed up to 143% with a market cap nearing $10 billion intraday. Shares closed trading ranking #12 year-to-date among other public offerings, more than doubling in its debut and ending the trading day up 120%.

Wish plans to price shares between $22 and $24

E-commerce marketplace Wish plans to list 46 million shares between $22 and $24, which values the company up to $14.07 billion. The company was last valued by private investors at $11.2 billion. ContextLogic, Wish’s parent company, which filed its IPO prospectus with the SEC last month, plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker “WISH.”

Wish is going public at an opportune time as e-commerce has surged during the pandemic. “We benefited from greater mobile usage and less competition from physical retail as a result of shelter-in-place mandates,” Wish released in a statement. In its S-1 filing, the company stated that they have over 100 million active monthly users in over 100 countries, they work with over 500,000 merchants offering about 150 million items in their catalog, and they sell roughly 1.8 million items per day.

Google AdSense to retire link ads

On Thursday morning, Google AdSense publishers received an email announcing that on October 3, 2021, users will no longer be able to create link ads. According to the email sent by Google, they are retiring link ads “in order to modernize our available ad formats, based on the feedback from users, publishers, and advertisers. Going forward, we’ll be focusing on improving and developing other ad formats to help you grow.”

Link ads display a list of topics that are relevant to the content of your page. Since link ads are closely targeted to the interest of users, AdSense publishers are able to monetize link ads when users click on ads linked to the topics of interest. With the retirement of link ads, AdSense publishers will no longer be able to make an earning from them. To assuage publishers’ income concerns, Google offered, “our experiments show that, for the vast majority of publishers, responsive display ads can perform as well as link ads.”

New Business For Sale

For sale is a highly scalable and unique content business in the children’s arts and crafts niche with recurring revenues. The business has built up an authoritative position within the niche, driven by over 1,000 in-depth and informative posts that have helped the business rank for c.97,500 keywords. With c.3.1M visitors and over 6M page views over the last 12 months, the site has become the go-to source of information for all things art-related. The business presents a unique opportunity for a new owner to take over a highly reputable and established content business with plenty of untapped growth opportunities.
Some key highlights:

  • The site has increasing ARPV over the LTM coupled with rising net margins over the same period
  • A paying base of c.960 users, growing at a c.11.3% CMGR over the LTM, and now generating c.$11.6K in MRR
  • Impressive traffic statistics with c.4.1M visitors
  • Consistent costs and cost distribution over the LTM

Request a prospectus from the link above to learn more.

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OTHER NEW LISTINGS
Affiliate – Water Filtration Product Reviews – $5.9K Gross/Mo

  • Firm foothold in the Water Filtration niche
  • Growing month-over-month revenues, reaching a CMGR of c.35.1% in the L11M
  • Highly diversified revenues with highly attractive affiliate partnerships
  • Simple and lean cost structure with minimal owner involvement

Yearly net profit: $68,000
Asking price: $159,000

Software Sales – Email Marketing Software – $7.5K Gross/Mo

  • A firm foothold in the Email Marketing Software niche
  • Attractive metrics with a high AOV of c.$419 over the LTM, selling 15 licenses per month
  • Impressive backlink structure, boasting c.1.81M backlinks and a stellar domain rating of 76
  • Lean and scalable cost structure

Yearly net profit: $60,000
Asking price: $204,000

SOLD BUSINESSES

Affiliate/Display Advertising – Dog Guides and Product Reviews – $7.6K Gross/Mo

Until next week!
The FE International Team