Meta's acquisition of Giphy was eventually rejected, and the latter will find another buyer.

Beijing time on the evening of October 18, it is reported that the acquisition of Giphy by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was officially rejected today. Meta agreed to abandon the deal, while Giphy will find another buyer.

As early as May 2020, Meta announced the acquisition of GIF image search engine Giphy for $315 million (about 2.265 billion yuan). Although Meta has completed the deal, the competition and market authority (CMA), the UK's antitrust regulator, rejected the deal at the end of November last year, asking Meta to sell Giphy.

Meta filed an appeal against the ruling in December last year, asking the UK Competition Court of Appeal (CAT) to reassess CMA's decision to overturn it. In July, Judge CAT reversed CMA's order, saying there was something wrong with its investigation methods and asked CMA to reconsider whether the deal would weaken competition in the market for display ads and social media services.

Today, CMA made the final decision to insist that Meta sell Giphy. The appropriate buyer will be identified at a later date.

A spokesman for Meta said: "We are disappointed with CMA's decision but accept today's decision as the final decision on the matter. We thank the Giphy team for their efforts for their business during this uncertain period and wish them every success."

It is not clear which company might bid for Giphy. According to Giphy itself, the company lacks suitable interested buyers. Giphy also said that the use of GIF had declined since the deal was announced two years ago, and that the company was now in an awkward position and was considered by some to be "out of date".

CMA has previously said it is mainly concerned that the deal will hurt the interests of other social networking sites, saying that Meta may use the acquisition to deny other social media platforms access to Giphy's GIF images.