Reuters - Russian group mulls Facebook investment: report

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Russian group mulls Facebook investment: report

Saturday, May 23, 2009 1:40AM UTC

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Russian Internet group, Digital Sky Technologies, has offered to invest $200 million in Facebook in a deal that would value the social networking site at $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

"Facebook is a private company, so as a matter of policy, we don't typically share details about our financial plans or comment on rumor and speculation," the company said in a statement.

Russia's Digital Sky Technologies was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told the Reuters Global Technology Summit this week that, "If there's an investment to be done on very good terms, we will consider it if for no other reason than to have more buffer if we want to do something in the future."

"Some of the rumblings that people are reporting on, are just different conversations that have happened, but there's really nothing new to talk about there," he added.

Digital Sky Technologies, which owns a stake in Russia's Mail.ru Web site, offered an investment of $200 million in the company's preferred stock, which would value it at $10 billion, and an additional $100 million to $150 million investment in the company's common stock, which would value it at $6.5 billion, the report said.

Facebook last got funding from Microsoft Corp in 2007, when the software company paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company.

Facebook has more than 200 million active users, double the number it had last August. The company also ranks as one of the top photo-sharing websites, with more than 15 billion pictures uploaded onto its service.

(Reporting by Peter Henderson and Clare Baldwin in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang)