Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s Twitter Investment Was Made Via Secondary Market
\nDecember 18, 2011 – Kerry A. Dolan – Forbes<\/p>\n
Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia purchased his stake in Twitter on the secondary market and not directly from Twitter, Forbes has learned.
\nBillionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed Takes $300 Million Stake In Twitter Kerry A. Dolan Kerry A. Dolan Forbes Staff
\nPrince Alwaleed’s Twitter Investment Isn’t For Politics Or Football Scores Chris Barth Chris Barth Forbes Staff<\/p>\n
Ahmed Halawani, executive director for private equity and international investments for Alwaleed\u2019s Kingdom Holding Co., explained that the investment in Twitter was made through a \u201cspecial purpose vehicle\u201d alongside other investors.<\/p>\n
These special purpose vehicles have come into vogue as the demand for a piece of much desired social media companies like Facebook, Zynga and Twitter grew over the past year and a half. Special purpose vehicles are set up to buy shares in companies like Twitter from existing shareholders \u2013usually early employees \u2013 who want to diversify their holdings. In this post here I explain how these investments work and some of the brokers that operate them.<\/p>\n
Halawani declined to state the overall value of Twitter at which the investment was made. However, the New York Times is reporting that the Prince and Kingdom Holding purchased shares at a price that values Twitter at $8.4 billion. That jives with what Halawani said about the size of the Prince\u2019s stake, which was described as \u201cstrategic\u201d in a statement issued by Kingdom Holding early Monday. \u201cThe normal definition of a strategic stake is 3%, and you can assume [the stake purchased on behalf of the Prince and Kingdom Holding] was more than 3%,\u201d Halawani said. At an $8.4 billion valuation, a $300 million investment equates to a 3.57% stake. …source<\/a><\/p>\n