Bono and Edge’s Facebook stake elevates
Private equity firm Elevation Partners, which counts Bono as one of its founders, saw its stake in Facebook jump to $750 million (€560m) this week from an initial investment of $210m. Elevation own 1.5% of Facebook and the social networking site was recently valued at $50 billion (€37.5bn) following a $500m investment from Goldman Sachs and Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies.
In June Elevation Partners purchased $120m in Facebook stock from private shareholders, which at the time valued the company at $23bn. The firm had previously purchased $90m of Facebook shares based on a $9bn valuation in November 2009.
Other Facebook backers include Microsoft, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing and venture capital firms Accel Partners, Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners.
Last year was a good one for Elevation Partners, which had a $460m investment in smartphone maker Palm, which was sold last year to HP for $1.2bn. Bono co-founded Elevation Partners with Roger McNamee.
Facebook has 500 million users worldwide and this latest valuation means it is worth more than Time Warner, eBay and Yahoo.
The €500m cash injection into the site, which began in a Harvard dorm in 2004, is once again fuelling rumours that the company is about to go public.
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26, Time magazine’s man of the year for 2010, stands to become one of the richest people on the planet following the new valuation. He owns about 25% of the company.
Facebook was both the most visited website and the most-searched for term in the US last year.
