MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian internet group Mail.Ru, part owned by the country’s richest man Alisher Usmanov, has sold the remainder of its shares in social network group Facebook Inc for $ 525 million, it said on Thursday.
Mail.ru originally bought into Facebook in 2009, investing $ 200 million for a small stake that valued Facebook at $ 10 billion. At the time of Facebook’s IPO last year, it had a stake worth around $ 700 million.
Mail.Ru sold some of its Facebook shares during the IPO. It said on Thursday it sold its remaining 14.2 million Facebook shares in the period of July-August 2013.
Mail.Ru also reported a 28 percent rise in first-half net profit to 5.1 billion roubles ($ 151.8 million) and edged up its revenue growth forecast for 2013 on the back of fast growth in advertising and games.
The company said it expected its revenue to rise by 27-29 percent in 2013, up from previous guidance of 25-28 percent but still below last year’s growth in sales of 39 percent.
(Reporting by Megan Davies and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Sophie Walker)
YOUR COMMENT
