Saudi Prince Alwaleed invests $300 million in Twitter

By Andrew Couts Published December 19, 2011

Prince-Alwaleed-Bin-Talal — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his investment firm, Kingdom Holding Company, have made a $300 million joint-investment in Twitter, the Kingdom Holding’s company announced early today. The jackpot investment comes just after Twitter rolled out a new advertiser-friendly redesign across all its platforms.

Kingdom Holding Company, of which Prince Alwaleed is the Chairman, currently has major stakes in a number of other American companies, including Apple, General Motors, and Citigroup, reports Bloomberg. Its investment in Twitter is seen Kingdom Holding as securing a “strategic stake” in the popular microblogging platform.

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“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years,” said Eng. Ahmed Halawani, Kingdom Holding Executive Director of Private Equity and International Investments. “Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend.”

Prince Alwaleed reiterated the company’s bravado in the deal, saying in a statement: “Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

The investment is, of course, great news for Twitter from a business standpoint. Some analysts predict that the Alwaleed-Kingdom Holding money injection gives Twitter a total value of around $10 billion. This is helped by the estimate by EMarketer Inc, which foresees Twitter boosting revenue by 86 percent in 2012, thanks to additional advertising.

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