Canadian firm Meta Materials' shares spike over 25% amid Facebook rebranding as 'Meta'

After Facebook revamps its parent company’s name to ‘Meta’, the traders were excited to invest in its shares on Thursday to make some profit, however, due to the similarity of names of Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta and Canadian materials company Meta Materials, they ended up rising the shares of the Canadian materials company.

Shares of Meta Materials spiked on Thursday evening up to 25 per cent, leading to a 4.8 per cent gain during market hours. After the rally of the shares, the worth of the company rose to $1.5 billion. The confusion happened over the company name, and many didn't care to check after Meta Materials started gaining.

While Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced that officially the owner of apps — WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, the company will be known as Meta Platform and the company’s name on the trading list will change from December 1, where the stock will trade under the ticker symbol MVRS. 

Irrespective of this, the traders had bet their money on the ticker symbol MMAT, mistaking it to revamped Facebook’s name. Reacting to the same, George Palikaras, the CEO of the Canadian Meta Materials, said on Thursday that he would like to cordially welcome Facebook to the ‘metaverse,’ a name that Zuckerberg gave to the universe of Facebook, WhatsApp, and all his social media platforms.

Facebook rebrands itself as ‘Meta’ amid Facebook paper revelations

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that the firm is renaming as Meta to better reflect its virtual-reality vision for the future, which he refers to as the "metaverse." Some sceptics also argue that it's also an attempt to divert attention away from the Facebook Papers, a wealth of stolen documents that reveal how Facebook ignored internal reports and warnings about the problems its social network caused or intensified around the world.

According to Zuckerberg, the metaverse will reach a billion individuals in the next decade. He claims that the metaverse will be a place where people can communicate, collaborate, and create products and content, with what he thinks there will be a new ecosystem that will provide "millions" of jobs for creators. The announcement comes as Facebook faces an existential crisis. Following the revelations in the Facebook Papers, it is facing legislative and regulatory scrutiny in many parts of the world.

(With inputs from AP)

(Image: Twitter/ AP)