MALAYSIAN TYCOON

TAN SRI VINCENT TAN

Let's share Malaysian tycoon story. On Saturday, 4 February 2012 I bought The Star and I found something attracts my attention to read more on that article which is publish on Starbizweek session. The headline is Tan: How I made money from Facebook and followed by the caption, Tycoon stands to pocket RM420 million after IPO. This article is written by Jagdev Singh Sidhu. It is telling us the truth story about Tan Sri Vincent Tan, "the man who does not have a Facebook account" and yes, he got shares in Facebook. Amazing, right?

Speaking to Starbizweek, Tan claimed how he came about getting his hand on a tiny but valuable stake in Facebook. MOL Global Bhd, which is controlled by Tan early in 2008, make a big hit through headlines when it bought 100 per cent of Friendster, the world's first social networking site, for US$38mil. Actually, the owner of Friendster offered US$40mil and decide to make a quick sale. Many people were looking into this, including  large firm from China and Japan, at Friendster. MOL makes a quick action within two days for the due diligence and made a bid. He said, "since Friendster owed people US$2mil, him offered US$38mil to Friendster and if they accepted, they will do the deal right away. And they accepted the proposal. 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.

The story starts when Tan knew that Facebook desperate Friendster's patents , it's been a while. His give full attention to facebook, which remained interested in Friendster's patents and whoose  offer of US$20mil cash for the technology rights was still on the table. He accepted their price but he wanted shares. Facebook officials told him that Zuckerberg, did not want to dilute the shares in the company but Tan stood firm and said "if there was NO shares, FORGET IT."

Finally, Zuckerberg agreed to a share exchanges for the patents and Tan got his 700,000 shares. His shares have grown 3.5 million following a 5-for-1 split in Facebook's shares before the IPO process. Tan did not leave Friendster to languish but devised a plan to get the social networking website to breakeven point.