KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun’s personal wealth could increase by as much as US$500 million (RM1.52 billion) this year, thanks to the initial public offer of Facebook Inc, the world’s largest social networking service company.
Reports seem to suggest that Tan’s MOL Global owns about one per cent of Facebook. According to its website, MOL Global is one of Southeast Asia’s biggest Internet companies and owns MOL Access Portal Bhd (MOL), a payment service provider.
Tan took MOL private in 2008, and a year later, the company made global headlines when it bought 100 per cent of Friendster, the world’s first social networking site, for an undisclosed amount.
By 2010, MOL sold Friendster’s patents to Facebook, and MOL received 700,000 shares as part of the deal, which have since turned into 3.5 million shares by mid-2011.
Tan, a selfmade billionaire who runs the conglomerate Berjaya Group, is the country’s 9th richest man with a personal wealth
of about RM3.75 billion.
The Johorborn Tan worked as a clerk and an insurance agent before going into business in the 1980s. In 1982, he purchased
Malaysia’s McDonald’s franchise and Sports Toto in 1985 when the lottery agency was privatised by the government.
The 60-year-old tycoon, who has a large business empire ranging from gaming and consumer-related stores to the mobile business, emerged last year as the biggest shareholder in Cardiff City Football Club, a Welsh club.
The Facebook initial public offering (IPO) is expected to be the biggest ever by an Internet or technology company, trumping the combined United States and German debut of Infineon Technologies AG’s US$5.85 billion share sale in 2000.
Facebook is expected to raise somewhere between US$5 billion and US$10 billion (RM15.2 billion and RM30.4 billion) from its IPO, which will value the company at beween US$60 billion and US$120 billion (RM182.4 billion and RM364.8 billion).
Facebook will likely go public by as early as May, a move that analysts say will be a major catalyst for the technology sector.
By Francis Fernandez, btimes.com.my
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