[liberationtech] Saudi Prince invests $300mn in Twitter

Mon Dec 19 11:33:44 PST 2011

Oh also?  This is--on the surface--just as alarming and I don't remember
half the fuss: http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/01/twitter-dst-confirm/

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>>>>
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>>>>    - Recommend
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>>>>       - 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
>
>
>
>

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