In its IFRS results report for H1 2013 published last week, Mail.ru Group, a leading, LSE-listed Russian Internet group, has made public the fact that over the course of July and August it disposed of its remaining $525+ million worth of Facebook equity, a total of 14.2 million shares.
The group did not disclose the profit that resulted from the transaction, but the Russian business daily Vedomosti has estimated it to be $1.767 billion.
The Facebook equity had been acquired back in 2009 by DST, the Russian later-stage fund from which Mail.ru Group later spun off. Even though the group handles mainly Russian industrial assets – including webmail service Mail.ru and leading social networks Odnoklassniki.ru and Vkontakte.ru (partially) – it had retained a small part of DST’s assets in Facebook as well as in Zynga and Groupon.
Industry analyst saw the operation as a way to bring additional value to the group prior to its introduction on the London stock exchange in October 2010. Mail.ru Group itself has always been clear that these companies were financial assets, not strategic ones.
Last November, the group lowered its stake in Groupon from 4.12% to 0.84% and in Zynga from 1.17% to a marginal 0.16%. According to The Next Web’s calculations, Mail.ru Group could have made some $230 million from these sales.
