Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The prince explains why he spent $300m on Twitter

One of the world’s most prominent businessmen, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, surprised many by announcing a $300 million investment in Twitter last month. But he says it was a logical business decision for his company.
“Kingdom Holding is not new at all to the internet and tech arena,” he told CNN’s John Defterios. “We were the first to invest in Apple computers … the first to invest in Amazon and eBay.”
While some eyebrows were raised when the Saudi company announced it would invest in Twitter, given that the site has been instrumental in the Arab Spring, Prince Alwaleed denies the deal was politically motivated.
“It was a pure financial investment with economic objectives,” he said. “Politics has no ingredients whatsoever in that investment … the secure economic financial investment with expected huge returns to our company Kingdom Holding.”
Asked about the future of Apple he said that judgement is still out as to whether it could continue its success post Steve Jobs, but he was hopeful that it would.
“I believe that Steve Jobs’ genius is by establishing a company that could outlive him and continue with his path,” he said.
Retweet this story

No comments:

Post a Comment