U2 FRONTMAN BONO stands to make a sizeable profit if and when his investment firm’s stake in Facebook pays out, it is reported.
With the social networking site now vauled at $65 billion, that values U2′s Elevation Partners’ stake at $975 million (€679m) which is more than four times the $210 million it paid for shares in November 2009, according to Lisa O’Carroll on Guardian.co.uk.
This follows a move by one of the social network’s early investors Interpublic to sell half of its 0.4 per cent share for $133m which allowed investors to estimate the site’s value at $65 billion, up from the previous estimate of $50 billion.
Earlier this year reports said that Bono and U2 guitarist The Edge, who is also a stakeholder in Elevation Partners, stand to make €400 million from a Facebook flotation.
Now the figure appears to be much higher.
It could be a remarkable turnaround in Bono’s fortunes given that the singer was branded “the worst investor in American” by the influential 24/7 Wall Street last year following a series of questionable investments by Elevation Partners.
These included $480 million being pumped into the smartphone maker Palm just months before Apple’s iPhone was launched.
There’s also the band’s affiliation with the infamous ‘Spiderman: Turn off the Dark’ Broadway musical which has been beset by problems and which U2 are believed to have backed to the rune of $65 million, according to the Irish Independent.
Elevation Partners has also made losses on an investment in publishing company Forbes whose influential business magazine of the same name earlier this year named U2 as one of the world’s highest paid musicians.
The band is reported to have taken $736 million from record sales and concert receipts over the last two years alone – netting them profits of around $195 million (€135m).
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