Twitter’s largest shareholders say “we’re not selling” with lockup expiring soon

Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) got a big relief this week, when some of its largest stockholder gave it a huge vote of confidence, by stating they would hold on to their stock. This comes ahead of the expiry of the lockup agreement that has been in place since the IPO in November, preventing 480 million shares of Twitter from being sold. With such a huge number of shares becoming available, there were concerns that the share price would plummet, if they were sold.

This large block of lockup stock represents four times the number of shares that are currently available for trading. Large investors have already said they will hold on to a total of 205 million shares. The key players that have pledged to keep their stock include co-founders Evan Williams and Dick Costolo. Rizvi Traverse Management LLC, which is the largest single holder of stock with 14 percent, has also said it will not be selling.

Twitter stock has been under pressure recently, as the rate that its user base is increasing has slowed down. The stock is now trading at just under $40, down from its peak of $74.73 on December 26. Chris Sacca, an early investor in Twitter who is also holding on to his large position, said that the number of monthly active users is the wrong way to look at the company’s value. Instead, they should be focusing on the way in which Tweets are being used more and more in the media, and on television.

Twitter said last week that it also will not be pursuing a second share offering as so many investors have pledged to hold on to their stock.