Facebook Parent Said To Splurge $60M On Meta Naming Rights

Facebook Inc FB, which is undergoing metamorphosis into Meta Platforms Inc, reportedly dished out $60 million to acquire trademark assets from Meta Financial Group CASH. 

What Happened: On Monday, Meta Financial Group, a holding company for a regional bank, said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it had entered into an agreement with Beige Key LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.

The bank said that Beige Key had agreed to acquire all worldwide rights to its company names. No details were spelled out in the filing as to the identity of Beige.

"Beige Key is affiliated with us and we have acquired these trademark assets," reported Reuters, citing a Meta Platform’s spokesperson. A spokesperson for MetaBank also confirmed the involvement of the Facebook parent to Reuters.

The Meta Platforms spokesperson told Reuters that the Mark Zuckerberg-led social behemoth was engaged in negotiations with Meta Financial before the name change was announced. 

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Why It Matters: The agreement between Meta Platforms and Meta Financial is a testament to how valuable the Meta name has become for the social media giant, noted Reuters.

Meta Platforms is betting big on Metaverse. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,”  Zuckerberg had said at the time of the rebranding.

After Facebook’s rebranding was announced, interest in metaverse shot up with several cryptocurrencies linked to virtual spaces shooting up. Recently, record “land” sales have been noted in the metaverse.

On Monday, Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster said metaverse was among the two new product categories that could fuel the growth of Apple Inc AAPL going forward.
Price Action: On Monday, Facebook shares closed nearly 1.4% higher at $334.49 in the regular session. The shares rose 0.29% in the after-hours trading.

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