Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) has invested US$60 million in the popular US-based social networking Web site Facebook with a right to acquire another US$60 million stake, a report said yesterday.
Citing unnamed sources, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog said Asia's richest man is not making the investment through his Hong Kong conglomerates -- Cheung Kong (Holding) Ltd (
In October, Microsoft bought a US$240 million stake in Facebook in a deal valuing the Web site at US$15 billion.
The report said the deal came through a Facebook investor, who introduced the company to Solina Chau (周凱旋), director of the Li Ka-shing Foundation and a major stockholder in Tom.com, a Chinese media company in which Li has an interest.
His investment could give Tom.com a leg up in possible partnerships with Facebook in China, the report added.
A spokeswoman for Hutchison Whampoa would not comment on the report.
The 79-year-old, whose fortune was valued at US$23 billion by Forbes, has investments across the world, including telecommunications, real estate, the Internet, shipping and retail.
Facebook is a social networking Web site that allows people to interact. Facebook has some 5 million members around the world and sees an average of 250,000 new users each day.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's decision to turn down offers to buy the Web site outright look to be paying dividends.
Zuckerberg claims to have rejected an offer from Yahoo Inc to purchase the Web site after the search giant reduced a verbal offer of US$1 billion to a firm offer of US$900,000.
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