Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's fortune has doubled to £9billion overnight after a huge cash injection from Goldman Sachs.
The bank has invested £291million in the social networking site with Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies putting in a further $32million, the New York Times reported.
Facebook is now valued at £32billion catapulting 26-year-old Zuckerberg from 212 into the top 40 of Forbes' list of billionaires.
Investment: Facebook has raised $500m in a deal that values the company at $50bn, making founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26, worth almost $14bn. Zuckerberg, seen here in Thailand last week for a friend's wedding, is famously low key
The new cash will let Facebook lure and retain employees, develop more products and possibly pursue acquisitions without being publicly traded.
Goldman is planning to create a special purpose vehicle to allow its high-net worth clients to invest in Facebook, according to the paper.
The £32billion valuation would make Facebook worth more than Yahoo!, eBay and Time Warner.
Zuckerberg, who owns about a quarter of Facebook's shares, is one of the world's youngest billionaires - and now one of the wealthiest of any age.
The New York Times said the deal may double Zuckerberg's personal fortune, which Forbes estimated at £4.5billion when Facebook was valued at £14.9billion.
It's been a high-profile year for the social media tycoon. In addition to having his life and Facebook founding portrayed in the blockbuster The Social Network, he was named Time's Person of the Year, opened himself up to Oprah and saw his fortune soar.
Despite his billions Zuckerberg chose to live in this modest rental house in Stanford, California with his girlfriend Priscilla Chan
Zuckerberg and longtime girlfriend Chan, who he met at Harvard, shared a kiss for Oprah's cameras in the autumn
Historically private, Zuckerberg opened his home, introduced his girlfriend to the world and has taken on a more public role as he defends his company against criticism that it violates users' privacy.
Representatives for Facebook, Goldman and Digital Sky Technologies declined to comment on the new investment.
Goldman has the right to sell part of its stake, up to £48.5million, to the Russian firm.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into the booming trade in privately held shares of popular social networking sites.
Jesse Eisenberg played the pyjama-in-public wearing Zuckerberg in the critically acclaimed, high-grossing The Social Network
Growth: The $500m will enable Facebook to stay private while providing it with cash to make purchases, recruit top-level employees and develop products
Plan: Goldman Sachs, run by Lloyd Blankfein, is planning to create a 'special purpose vehicle' to dodge a regulation about shareholder numbers
A big reason the SEC may be curious about the trading of these popular private startups' shares is because once a company hits 500 shareholders, it must disclose certain financial information to the public, even if it hasn't filed for an initial public offering.
The Times reported that Goldman is planning to create a 'special purpose vehicle' that may be able to circumvent the 500 shareholder rule because it would be managed by Goldman and considered just one investor, even though it could conceivably be pooling investments from thousands of clients.
Shares of privately held companies can be traded on private stock exchanges such as SecondMarket, based in New York, and SharesPost, based in San Bruno, California.
The shares are generally sold by former employees or early investors in these companies.
Only institutional investors or high net-worth individuals – those worth more than £650,000 – can buy the shares.
But for those who can sell them, the market is on fire.
On SharesPost, a completed contract between a buyer and a seller valued shares of Palo Alto, California-based Facebook at $25 each.
This implies a valuation of nearly $57billion - or £37billion - for the world's largest social network, with 500million-plus users worldwide.
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