1 Microsoft picks up LinkedIn for $26.2bn (Sean
Farrell in The Guardian) It took just 14 years for LinkedIn to grow from a
brainwave in a tech entrepreneur’s living room to a $26.2bn takeover target. Reid
Hoffman, 48, hatched the idea for LinkedIn from his apartment in December 2002
– shortly after eBay bought online payment service PayPal, where he was CEO.
Before joining PayPal as its main troubleshooter,
Hoffman had been an early pioneer of social networks after launching SocialNet
in the late 1990s. SocialNet allowed people to meet each other online using
pseudonyms but Hoffman’s successor idea – LinkedIn – brought professionals face
to face in the online marketplace.
Hoffman’s new site, which aimed to let people build
a professional online network and launched with help from former SocialNet
colleagues, went live in 2003. Hoffman was an early investor in Facebook in
2005 but he believed people would want a separate site to manage their
professional lives and persevered with LinkedIn.
The company attracted capital from venture capital
investors, starting in 2003 when Sequoia Capital took a stake. In 2008 Sequoia
and other firms bought 5% for $53m, valuing LinkedIn at about $1bn. The company
floated on the New York stock exchange in 2011, valued at $4.3bn.
LinkedIn has continued to attract members, growing
from about 100 million when it floated, to more than 433 million in 200
countries now. Last year, LinkedIn’s revenues were almost $3bn but it recorded
a net loss of $166m. Most of its income is from the “talent solutions”
division, which charges recruiters to advertise jobs and use the company’s
data.
Before Microsoft’s acquisition was announced,
LinkedIn shares were trading at $131, almost three times their $45 value at
flotation, but down from a peak of $269 in February 2015.
2 Investors stay cautious in Asia (BBC) Investors
across Asia remained cautious again on Tuesday ahead of several key events in
the coming two weeks, including the UK's EU referendum.
In addition to worries over the UK's upcoming
referendum, investors are also eying the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of
Japan, both of which are set to hold meetings this week. Most analysts have
said it is unlikely either central bank will announce rate cuts, however.
3 Thirty years away from 30% females in financial boardroom
(Khaleej Times) It will take 30 years at the current pace of change for women
to attain just 30 per cent of the seats on executive committees in the
financial services industry globally, an Oliver Wyman report says.
Globally, women account for only one-fifth of boards
and 16 per cent of executive committees in financial services, the management
consultancy said. Thirty per cent is the level at which research suggests a
minority's voice can be heard and a separate initiative called The 30 Percent
Club campaigns for a similar global target for company boards.
The global financial services industry has long been
seen as male-dominated. Female executives in financial services are 20 to 30
per cent more likely to leave their employers than their peers in other industries,
citing inflexible working hours, inequalities in promotion and pay, and
unconscious bias, the report found.
Only eight per cent of CEOs are women whilst 50 per
cent of HR heads are women, according to the report. In banking and insurance,
women make up only 14 per cent of executive committees compared to 22 per cent
and 18 per cent in the public sector and asset management sectors,
respectively.
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