Russia’s
richest man, Alisher Usmanov has sold his shares in Facebook which is being
controlled by his internet investment company Mail.ru.
Mail.ru
announced on Thursday that it has sold its 14.2 million shares in Facebook
after the stock price of Facebook recovered from its crash.
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| Alisher Usmanov. Image: Guardian |
Alisher
Usmanov bought these shares in 2009 when Facebook was not yet public for about
$200 million. Facebook was worth $10bn at the time.
However,
Facebook went public in 2012 trading its stock at $38 per share. Due to
Facebook’s initial inability to utilize its growing traffic on mobile devices
for revenue, investors started losing faith in the giant social site.
This saw
Facebook’s stock price fall below half of its initial offering of $38. Facebook
has since recovered and has had a 125% increase in its stock price over the
year. Facebook has also been helped by its second quarter financial results in
which mobile version of the site accounted for 41% of its revenue.
Mail.ru sold
the shares in July and August for $528 million after the stock price rose above
the initial price in 2012.
The Arsenal
shareholder still has an undisclosed amount of shares in Facebook through one
of his investments, Digital Sky Technologies (DST). Through DST, Usmanov also
have shares in Twitter, Zynga, Groupon, and Chinese marketplace, Alibaba.
In late
April, he bought shares worth $100 million from Apple after its share plummeted
to a low $390.53 this year. He beliefs that despite the absence of Steve Jobs,
Apple will still regain a high value in the years to come.
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Usmanov sells shares in Facebook