California’s board of corporations has declared Facebook’s acquisition deal final. The state approved the release of nearly 23 million shares of the social network’s stock deeming the deal "fair."
"The terms and conditions of Facebook Inc’s acquisition of Instagram Inc. are fair to the Instagram shareholders and the Department will issue a permit that authorizes Facebook to issue stock for that acquisition. This determination constitutes the final regulatory approval required for the acquisition," said the Department of Corporations in a statement.
The state was concerned if the deal was still to fair to Instagram’s 19 shareholders as Facebook share prices have dropped to $19 per share, half of its initial price in May. This has caused the once $1bn Instagram price tag to drop to nearly $700m.
The Federal Trade commission announced last week that Facebook was OK to close the Instagram deal, saying that the social network would not have an unfair advertising advantage in the social media or photo app space.
The Office of Fair Trading also gave Facebook the green light on the deal earlier this month.
The OFT had said a major concern was to ensure that limits would not be placed on people uploading Instagram photos to other social networks.
"From the evidence we received it didn’t suggest that the parties would have the interest to pursue that (monopolisation) as a strategy," an OFT spokesperson told CBR.
In a statement about the Instagram purchase, Mark Zuckerberg said that it was an "important milestone for Facebook" as it was the first acquisition that had a product with a large amount of users.
"We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all," said Zuckerberg. "But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."
Zuckerberg has said he intends to keep the company running as a separate entity, rather than dissolve it into Facebook completely.
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