Twitter said to be close to a deal with Elon Musk

 

As unlikely as it may have once seemed, reports indicate Elon Musk may actually end up the owner of a newly-private Twitter after all. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times are reporting that Twitter’s board is seriously considering Musk’s offer to buy the company, with the corporate governing body’s attitude towards the offer changing following Musk’s outlining of his plan to source the funds to make real his $46.5 billion offer to buy the company.

Twitter’s board met on Sunday to discuss Musk’s offer, and the NYT reports that they then entered into negotiations with Musk early on Monday morning to hammer out additional details including the timeline for close and what, if any, financial protections Twitter would enjoy were any potential deal to go south post-announcement.

Both reports stress that the deal is not yet final and could still fall apart, but given where we started it’s kind of amazing that it’s even gotten this far. Musk’s bid was initially seen by critics as undervaluing the company significantly despite it representing a premium on the current, depressed Twitter stock price, and the board even instituted a ‘poison pill’ policy to try to block Musk from acquiring a much more significant ownership position in the company.

If you need to catch up on all the wild twists in this story so far, check out our recap. It sounds like either way, we’ll have another instalment to share at some point today.

Emefiele rules out interest rate cut this year over inflation

Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 13.5 per cent.Reason: The possibility of interest rate cut now hinges on the corresponding fall in inflation rate to nine per cent or below before considering cutting its key rate, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has hinted.
For Emefiele, the condition is not likely to happen this year, but can “only happen  next year.”“I’m not seeing that [interest rate cut] coming this year. During the course of 2020, we may be able to see that, but I can’t see that until we begin to see the numbers showing inflation is trending downward,” Emefiele said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, in London, yesterday.
The development is coming as a disappointing one for many in the real sector, who have long craved for easing regime, especially with a renewed hope for its realization given the 48-month low inflation rate at 11.02 per cent.The apex bank chief, while acknowledging the positive moderation in inflation, though slowly from 11.08 per cent in July to 11.02 per cent in August 2019, said it was still above the target range of 6-9 per cent.