Meta's deal to buy Giphy was ultimately rejected

According to reports, Facebook’s parent company Meta’s acquisition of Giphy’s transaction was officially rejected yesterday, Meta agreed to abandon the transaction, and Giphy will find another buyer.

As early as May 2020, Meta announced the acquisition of Giphy, a GIF image search engine, for $315 million (about 2.265 billion yuan). Although Meta has completed the deal, the UK antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), blocked the deal at the end of November last year, requiring Meta to sell Giphy.

Meta appealed the ruling in December, asking the UK Competition Court of Appeal (CAT) to reassess the CMA's ruling to overturn it. In July, a CAT judge quashed the CMA's order, citing problems with its investigative methodology, asking the CMA to reconsider whether the deal would reduce competition in the display advertising and social media services markets.

Today, the CMA has made a final decision, insisting that Meta sell Giphy. A suitable buyer will be identified at a later date.

A spokesperson for Meta said, we are disappointed by the CMA's decision but accept today's ruling as final on this matter. We thank the Giphy team for what they have done for their business during this uncertain time. Work hard and wish them every success.

It's unclear which company might bid for Giphy. According to Giphy itself, the company lacks suitable interested buyers. Giphy also said that the use of GIFs has declined since the deal was announced two years ago, and the company is now in the awkward position of being considered by some to be obsolete.

The CMA has previously said its main concern is that the deal will harm other social networking sites, saying Meta could use the acquisition to deny other social media platforms access to Giphy's GIFs.