Microsoft buys $240m stake in Facebook

Rapidly rising internet star Facebook has sold a 1.6% stake to Microsoft for $240m (€168.2m), spurning a competing offer from online search giant Google.

The deal announced in San Francisco tonight after several weeks of negotiation values Facebook at $15bn (€10.5bn) - less than four years after Mark Zuckerberg, 23, started the social networking site in his Harvard University dorm room.