19 December 2011
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the nephew of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, has invested $300 million into Twitter. One of the wealthiest people in the world, Forbes Magazine estimates the Prince's net worth to be $19.6 billion.
Other investments in the Prince's portfolio include a 'sizable' share in Citigroup and a seven per cent stake in News Corporation. The stake in Twitter was bought after several months of negotiations through Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Company.
"Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact," the Prince told the Telegraph, who apparently also planning to launch his own cable news channel.
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is also a major investor in the company. Milner also has major investments in Facebook and Zygna, as well as owning Digital Sky Technologies.
Twitter is currently valued at $8.4 billion and has over 100 million registered users, despite having yet to make a significant profit. The cultural influence of the site is staggering though, and thought to have played a sizeable role in the Arab Spring, after its members used microblogging to disseminate real-time information to aid the uprisings in several Arab countries.
The site's users send approximately one billion tweets each week, however, it has so far been unable to make a good commercial model to create more revenue. Over the last year, it has released several commercial products, including promoted tweets, search results and trends. However, technology analysts believe it has not lived up to its potential so far.
Twitter has declined to make any comment other than the details of the Prince's investment.
Saudi Prince buys into Twitter
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the nephew of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, has invested $300 million into Twitter. One of the wealthiest people in the world, Forbes Magazine estimates the Prince's net worth to be $19.6 billion.Other investments in the Prince's portfolio include a 'sizable' share in Citigroup and a seven per cent stake in News Corporation. The stake in Twitter was bought after several months of negotiations through Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Company.
"Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact," the Prince told the Telegraph, who apparently also planning to launch his own cable news channel.
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is also a major investor in the company. Milner also has major investments in Facebook and Zygna, as well as owning Digital Sky Technologies.
Twitter is currently valued at $8.4 billion and has over 100 million registered users, despite having yet to make a significant profit. The cultural influence of the site is staggering though, and thought to have played a sizeable role in the Arab Spring, after its members used microblogging to disseminate real-time information to aid the uprisings in several Arab countries.
The site's users send approximately one billion tweets each week, however, it has so far been unable to make a good commercial model to create more revenue. Over the last year, it has released several commercial products, including promoted tweets, search results and trends. However, technology analysts believe it has not lived up to its potential so far.
Twitter has declined to make any comment other than the details of the Prince's investment.
English
German/Deutsch
Norwegian/Norsk
Swedish/Svenska
Italian/Italiano
French/Français
Spanish/Español
Latest News
RSS News Feeds
Related Articles
Tags
