[liberationtech] Saudi Prince invests $300mn in Twitter

Mon Dec 19 11:32:08 PST 2011

Ha, you think that's bad, you should see how many calls I've gotten asking
what effect Kim Jong-Il's death with have on the North Korean Internet!

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Brian Conley <brianc at smallworldnews.tv>wrote:

> I agree with Jillian. Slow news day on the markets?
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Honestly?  I trust that this will have less than zero effect on Twitter's
>> policy.  Twitter has stood up to a whole lot of other powerful players,
>> including the US and UK governments.  Saudi's powerful, but we're talking
>> about a share of under 5%. Try as they might, Kingdom Holding will likely
>> have minimal effect.
>>
>> Is it icky?  For sure, but so are a lot of deals.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 3:26 AM, Daniel Isaiah Ong <
>> danielo at cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/?hp
>>>
>>> Saudi Prince Invests $300 Million in TwitterBY MARK SCOTT<http://dealbook.nytimes.com/author/mark-scott/>
>>>
>>> LONDON — The Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal and his investment company,
>>> Kingdom Holding, said Monday they had bought a “strategic stake” in the
>>> social media site Twitter for $300 million.
>>>
>>> The investment represents roughly 3 percent stake of the company, based
>>> in San Francisco, which was valued at $8 billion in August.
>>>
>>> In a statement, Prince Walid, who owns 95 percent of Kingdom Holding,
>>> said the purchase was part of a strategy “to invest in promising,
>>> high-growth businesses with a global impact.”
>>>   Article Tools
>>>
>>>    -  E-mail<http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/?hp>
>>>    - Print<http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/?pagemode=print>
>>>    - Recommend
>>>    - Share
>>>       - TUMBLR
>>>       - DIGG
>>>       - LINKEDIN
>>>       - REDDIT
>>>       - PERMALINK
>>>       -
>>>    - Twitter
>>>
>>> Despite ongoing volatility in the financial markets, investors have
>>> shown continued interest in Internet companies. Last week, the social
>>> network gaming company Zynga raised $1 billion in an initial public
>>> offering, while Groupon, the daily deals site, raised $700 million from the
>>> markets in early November.
>>>
>>> Kingdom Holding stock was up about 6 percent in midday trading in Riyadh.
>>>
>>> Prince Walid, who also own stakes in U.S. blue chip companies such as
>>> Citigroup, General Motors and Apple, is the nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King
>>> Abdullah. He also is one the of the Arab world’s richest men, with assets
>>> worth an estimated $21 billion, according to Arabian Business magazine.
>>>
>>> The investment in Twitter comes after the company’s co-founder Biz Stone
>>> announced in June that he would be stepping back from the fast-growing
>>> social media. Twitter’s other co-founder, Evan Williams, was replaced by
>>> the current chief executive Dick Costolo last year.
>>>
>>> Despite the management shake-up, Twitter has continued to gain traction,
>>> particularly in the Arab world, where it was credited with playing a role
>>> in the recent popular uprisings across North Africa and the Gulf.
>>>
>>> Arabic is now the fastest growing language used on Twitter, according to
>>> the data intelligence company Semiocast.
>>>
>>> The volume of Arabic messages, for example, has multiplied by 2,146
>>> percent in the 12 months ending in October, according to figures from
>>> Semiocast. That makes Arabic the eighth most used language on the site.
>>>
>>> “We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media
>>> industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize
>>> this positive trend,” Ahmed Reda Halawani, Kingdom Holding’s executive
>>> director of private equity and international investments, said in a
>>> statement.
>>>
>>> The website currently has over 100 million active users, and raised
>>> approximately $400 million of new capital last summer. That investment was
>>> led by DST Global, the investment firm headed by the Russian billionaire
>>> Yuri Milner.
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork | tel: +1-857-891-4244 | google voice:
>> +1-415-562-JILL
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Brian Conley
> Director, Small World News
> http://smallworldnews.tv
> m: 646.285.2046
> Skype: brianjoelconley
>
>

-- 
jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork | tel: +1-857-891-4244 | google voice:
+1-415-562-JILL
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