Elevation Said to Buy Additional $120 Million Stake in Facebook
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said no date is set for an initial public offering. Photographer: Antoine Antoniol/Bloomberg
Elevation Partners LP, the private- equity firm whose founders include Bono and Roger McNamee, added to its stake in Facebook Inc. with a $120 million investment, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Elevation, which bought the shares from equity owners in private transactions, has invested a total of $210 million in Facebook at an average valuation of $14 billion, said the person, who declined to be named because the recent ownership hasn’t been publicly disclosed.
Facebook, the world’s most popular social-network site with about 500 million users, is valued at $19.9 billion, according to SharesPost Inc., a marketplace for closely held companies. Elevation is banking on a bigger gain from Facebook than it reaped from Palm Inc., which is due to yield about 5 percent after it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard Co.
Elevation, based in Menlo Park, California, is buying stakes and taking active roles in private Internet companies. In addition to its previous $90 million investment in Facebook, Elevation purchased a $100 million stake in business-review site Yelp Inc. earlier this year. TechCrunch reported on the additional purchase of Facebook shares earlier today.
The Palm investment is Elevation’s biggest bet to date. Hewlett-Packard agreed to buy the smartphone maker in April. Elevation also owns minority stakes in Forbes Media LLC and real estate website Move Inc.
Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, hasn’t set a date for an initial public offering, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said as recently as this month.
SharesPost calculates its market valuation of Facebook and other venture-backed companies by combining recent share transactions, financing rounds and research estimates. Elevation spokesman Ron Low and Facebook spokesman Jonathan Thaw declined to comment.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net.
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