Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platform, raised US$10 billion in its first-ever bond offering, and the company will use the money for share buybacks and investments that will be critical to its business realignment.
The offering will also help Meta build a more traditional balance sheet and fund its metaverse virtual reality ambitions. The company remains the only big tech company without debt.
The offering is crucial for the company, especially now that it is struggling with declining advertisers and users. Apple’s privacy policies have contributed to Meta’s decline in revenue, as the company can no longer use customer data without their consent.
During the COVID pandemic, Facebook suspended its performance review process, which sets bonuses for half the year, giving employees a blanket that “exceeds expectations,” grade, extra time off and a US$1,000 cash bonus.
By June 2021, almost anyone could work where they wanted, while the company launched a massive wave of hiring, increasing its number of full-time employees by 62% from 48,000 at the end of 2019 to more than 77,800.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that his company had become too soft during the period of expansion, and that it was time to reboot the work culture.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
