Brad Greenspan, the founder of MySpace's parent company Intermix, claimed today that Intermix's sale of MySpace to News Corp defrauded shareholders out of tens of billions of dollars. He also claims it's "one of the largest merger and acquisition scandals in U.S. history," and wants a federal investigation of the sale.
The basic premise seems to be that MySpace was intentionally undervalued, meaning that the shareholders lost out - Brad, of course, is Intermix's biggest shareholder and wants his money. In a report posted by Greenspan on FreeMySpace.com (in which describes himself as MySpace's founder), it's claimed that MySpace was on the way to being worth $20 billion when News Corp snapped it up for a measly $580 million. What's more, Greenspan has posted emails between Intermix chief executive officer Richard Rosenblatt and News Corp's Ross Levinsohn which include choice phrases like "This is your show and I am looking forward to supporting the 20B dream!".
Is Greenspan just bitter now that MySpace has turned into a massive success, or is there anything to it? If you're willing to read through Greenspan's 9 chapter report posted on FreeMySpace, you can make up your own mind. For what it's worth, Fox just issued a reponse that reads "It's unfortunate that Mr. Greenspan continues to issue press releases complaining about a deal that many industry experts initially believed was a risk for News Corp. to take...This is simply a case of sour grapes".