Twitter avoids U.S. antitrust scrutiny over MoPub acquisition

By Gerry Shih and Diane Bartz

(Reuters) - Twitter's acquisition offer for MoPub, a mobile advertising exchange, will not be challenged by antitrust regulators ahead of the microblogging service's initial public offering, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Twitter announced on September 9 that it would buy MoPub in its largest acquisition to date. Twitter paid $350 million (215.6 million pounds) in stock, a value that triggered an automatic FTC review into whether the transaction would hurt competition.

The deal was on a list of approved transactions that the FTC puts out several times a week. The approval was announced on Monday.

The acquisition, which came days before Twitter revealed that it had filed go public, has been viewed by analysts as a way for Twitter to introduce real-time ad-targeting capabilities and increase the value of its mobile ads.

Twitter is widely expected to go public at a valuation exceeding $10 billion in the coming weeks.

MoPub's venture backers included Accel Partners, Harrison Metal Capital, and Jafco Ventures.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih in San Francisco and Diane Bartz in Washington; editing by Matthew Lewis)