Saudi Prince doesn’t intend to sell his Twitter stake

Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has revealed he will not sell his investments in Twitter before or at its initial public offering (IPO) as he predicted it could be later this year or early in 2014.

Prince Alwaleed who is a nephew of the Saudi King Abdullah revealed he invested $300 million in Twitter in late 2011. He also revealed he will not sell a single share before Twitter goes public.

Prince Alwaleed. Pic: Reuters

“Clearly the speed they’re moving with shows that they would like to IPO sooner than later. I believe it will happen either this year or early next year,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“Twitter is a very strategic investment for us. We believe that it is just beginning to touch the surface. We have invested $300 million in the company. We will be selling zero, nothing, at the IPO.”

It is expected that Twitter could go public very soon and analysts believe it would be worth $10 billion during the public offering. Prince Alwaleed also believes in the potential of Twitter.

“With the 300 million customers they have and half a billion tweets a day, the growth potential is tremendous,” he said.

“We hear the company is valued at $14bn -- $15bn but there have been trades above this valuation. We believe it might be worth more than that.”

He however has a warning for Twitter about the IPO: “In my discussion with Mr. Costolo and the management of Twitter, I cautioned them to be very careful and not to repeat the mistakes of Facebook.

“The lessons are not to brag too much, don’t be greedy – I mean price it right and be realistic.” he said.

“There could be a good surprise for the market, where Twitter revenues coming from mobile compared to fixed devices are way ahead of what Facebook came with at the time of the IPO.” Alwaleed said.

Alwaleed is worth $20 according to the last Forbes ranking in March, 2013. Prince Alwaleed disagreed with Forbes though claiming he is actually worth $29.6 billion.

Twitter is the second biggest social media site on the basis of number of users with about 550 million users. It’s still a long way to Facebook’s 1.15 billion users though. In comparison, Facebook is already public with a value of over $100 billion. Professional site LinkedIn is also public with a worth of over $30 billion.

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