Investors Shouldn’t be Afraid of Breaking up Meta (Nasdaq: META)

By Austin Smith Published Apr 28, 3:12PM EDT

Key Points

A potential breakup of Meta (NASDAQ: META) could unlock shareholder value, similar to historical cases like AT&T (NYSE: T) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).
If Meta were divided into separate entities like Facebook and Instagram, individual asset valuations might exceed the current combined market cap.
Despite recent market volatility, Meta has remained resilient, and distributing its business units to shareholders could result in higher aggregate value.

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Investors Shouldn’t be Afraid of Breaking up Meta (Nasdaq: META) — © 24/7 Wall St

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Doug McIntyre: We have a potential, breakup of what you and I know as Facebook. They now call it Meta. I don’t know how they break that up. It may be that what they do is they take some of the Instagram and some of that stuff and then, keep Facebook second this alternative universe. I don’t think who, who wants that?

[00:00:30] Doug McIntyre: It doesn’t make any sense. Who knows? The thing that I’ve often found though is when you look at these companies, you remember this, they almost broke up Microsoft. They were with them, almost sure they did break up AT&T. Yep. And one of the things that I’ve found looking back in history is sometimes as a shareholder, you’re better for it to be broken up.

[00:00:54] Lee Jackson: Oh, absolutely. The, the Baby Bell owners were very happy.

[00:01:00] Doug McIntyre: So I don’t know that it matters as long as you can go on and use all these social media platforms, I don’t know that it matters to anybody other than people who hold the stock and listen, I’m telling you, if you own the stock, this will get appealed.

[00:01:15] Doug McIntyre: And, but don’t be surprised if you do way better than you thought you would if it just, everything stayed under one umbrella. So if Meta gets broken up, you may be better off than if it stays together.

[00:01:30] Lee Jackson: Well, and not only that, as we’ve had one of the quickest sell downs I’ve seen in the 35 some odd years I’ve been in this racket, meta was one of the only of the, the magnificent seven that really hung in there good. Yeah. If shareholders get pieces of Meta, they could very well end up being more valuable. I totally agree, Doug.

About the Author Austin Smith →

Austin Smith is a financial publisher with over two decades of experience in the markets. He spent over a decade at The Motley Fool as a senior editor for Fool.com, portfolio advisor for Millionacres, and launched new brands in the personal finance and real estate investing space.

His work has been featured on Fool.com, NPR, CNBC, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, AOL, Marketwatch, and many other publications. Today he writes for 24/7 Wall St and covers equities, REITs, and ETFs for readers. He is as an advisor to private companies, and co-hosts The AI Investor Podcast.

When not looking for investment opportunities, he can be found skiing, running, or playing soccer with his children. Learn more about me here.