SITARAMAN SHANKAR, DUBAI — Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor in some of the world’s top companies, has bought a stake in Twitter for $300m, gaining another foothold in the global media industry. Mr Alwaleed, a nephew of Saudi Arabia’s king estimated by Forbes magazine in March to have a fortune of $19,6bn, already owns a 7% stake in News Corp and plans to start a cable news channel. The purchase is remarkable because Twitter was a key means of communication for protesters in the spending stake,Arab Spring revolts this year, violence that threatened Saudi Arabia until the kingdom unveiled a populist $130bn social bought package. The Twitter jointly by Mr Alwaleed and his Kingdom Holding investment company, resulted from "months of negotiations", Kingdom said. Dick Costolo, Twitter chief executive, valued the company at $8bn in October, according to media reports, which would peg the size of Mr Alwaleed’s investment at just less than 4%. Twitter, which allows people to send 140-character messages, or tweets, to groups of followers, is one of the internet’s most popular social networking services, along with Facebook and Zynga. Bernhard Warner, co-founder of Social Media Influence, an analysis and advisory company, said: "The Arab world, of course, knows full well the value of Twitter. In the past year, it has been a force in politics, in regime change, so there is not a single person in that region in a position of influence who is not following the increasing power of Twitter." Mr Alwaleed "must see Twitter as something that is going to be a really powerful broadcast channel", he said, adding the Saudi had got into the internet boom belatedly, with mixed results, and appeared to be "kind of late" to the game again. Investors in Saudi Arabia were more bullish, sending shares in Kingdom up 5,7% to 8,30 riyals at the close. "One of the few sectors to record significant revenue gains in the past three years has been technology, which is why Kingdom would see Twitter as a good addition to its diversified portfolio," said Hesham Tuffaha, head of asset management at Bakheet Investment Group in Riyadh. Source: Businessday, Reference-Image: Flickr
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