LinkedIn Has Lost $100 mn Since Acquisition by Microsoft

Microsoft, while reporting about its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, also revealed that its newly-acquired company LinkedIn has lost $100 million since the deal closed in December. LinkedIn contributed $228 million to Microsoft's revenue, which forms only one percent of Microsoft's $26.1 billion revenue for the quarter. Microsoft had announced to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in an all-cash deal in June last year.

In Q2 2016, LinkedIn reported that it had generated $933 million in revenue, with an earnings per share of $1.13. However, it also had a net loss of $118 million.

In Microsoft's filing, LinkedIn was relegated to the productivity and business processes section, and it brought in $7.4 billion for the quarter, a ten percent annual increase. Now that it is a subsidiary, LinkedIn is no longer listing its member numbers. In its final quarter as an independent entity, the company said its membership grew 18 percent to 467 million.

Microsoft had completed its LinkedIn acquisition in December 2016, after receiving approval from regulators in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and South Africa, as well as the European Commission. However, in order to do so, Microsoft had to pay a price, some of which is as follows -

• For the next 5 years, LinkedIn competitors will have continued access to Office Add-in and promotional opportunities in the Office store
• Microsoft cannot enter into agreements with PC manufacturers to pre-install a Windows LinkedIn application or a tile favoring the social network on an exclusive basis.

Earlier in the year, before Microsoft had announced its intention to acquire LinkedIn, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff had been in the running to purchase the professional social network. And after being outbid, Benioff had submitted a request to the European Union and regulators asking that extra scrutiny be paid to the deal.