BURBANK (dpa-AFX) - Walt Disney Co. (DIS) decided not to pursue a bid for Twitter Inc. partly out of concern that bullying and other uncivil forms of communication on the social media site might soil the company's wholesome family image, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with matter.
The company had gone so far as to hire two investment banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Guggenheim Partners LLC, to help evaluate a bid for Twitter. Disney management also listened to a presentation about the business from Twitter executives, the report said.
There were other reasons for Disney not to pursue Twitter. The social media pioneer is losing money and yet sports a market value of almost $12 billion. That would a big deal even for Disney, which has a market value 12 times that. Some of Disney's largest investors called the company over the past few weeks to express their displeasure with a Twitter purchase for those reasons, the report said.
Salesforce.com Inc. also decided against a Twitter bid, as did Alphabet Inc.'s Google.
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