NEW YORK—Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal on Monday announced a $300 million investment in the micro-blogging website Twitter Inc.
Price Al-Waleed, one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of $20 billion according to Forbes, said that the investment reflects the growing importance of blogging and alternative media. Twitter was one of the most widely used forms of information dissemination during the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East earlier this year.
“Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact,” Prince Waleed said in a statement released from his investment company, Kingdom Holding Co. “Social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” said Ahmed Halawani, executive director of private equity at Kingdom Holding.
Reuters estimates that Al-Waleed values Twitter at around $10 billion, implying a 3 percent stake in the privately held company.
The San Francisco-based Twitter allows users to send “tweets” of up to 140 characters and is frequently used by celebrities and organizations to make announcements to followers and friends. The company says that it has more than 100 million active users per day.
Al-Waleed has accumulated a vast number of investments across multiple industries. His holding company has investments in Citigroup Inc., and media companies Time Warner Inc. and News Corporation. He is currently developing a new Arabic news channel in conjunction with Bloomberg News to compete with Al-Jazeera in the region.
Unlike social networking site Facebook Inc., Twitter has not publicized its timing of an initial public offering. Nevertheless, it has raised more than $1 billion from private investors and firms since its inception. Twitter recently revamped its website home page to make navigation and blogging easier.
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