Alisher Usmanov, the Russian billionaire who backs the leading global Internet investment fund DST Global, is now avoiding the US and focusing on China, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
The valuations of US technology companies are too high to justify making new investments, Ivan Streshinskiy, chief executive officer of the company that manages Usmanov’s assets, was quoted as saying.
Even though Usmanov is said to have made more than $1 billion investing in Facebook, he is no more investing in the US at the moment, Streshinskiy said. “People got used to these huge multiples, often forgetting about the basic fundamentals of the business,” he added.
The Chinese market is way more attractive: “When you are doing even something small for China, it’s really big on a global scale,” said Streshinskiy,
DST opened its Asia office in Hong Kong in 2011. It has already invested in Chinese e-commerce leader 360buy.com and b2b giant Alibaba Group.
A major shareholder of the Mail.ru group, Russia’s largest Internet group, Usmanov emerged as the country’s richest man last year. Telecommunications, Internet and media assets now account for more than half of his fortune, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
