Michael Peel & Richard Waters A member of Saudi Arabias ruling royal family has become a significant shareholder in Twitter,one of the online tools used by protesters who staged this years Arab spring uprisings. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,the Saudi billionaire,has acquired a $300m stake in the US micro-blogging service after buying shares from existing shareholders in a secondary offer,according to one person familiar with the arrangement. The deal will leave him in control of a stake of around 3 per cent,based on the value of other recent private transactions. The Saudi investment a joint arrangement between the prince and the Kingdom Holding Company that he controls came after months of talks and was a strategic stake,it said. Prince Alwaleed a high-profile investor in technology and media shares including News Corp and Apple said the deal showed his enthusiasm for promising,high-growth businesses with a global impact. Twitter confirmed the investment but refused to comment on the implications of having a member of the Saudi ruling family among its shareholders. The prince,a nephew of the Saudi King Abdullah,has long stood out from other Saudi princes,both in his social views and investment philosophy. In the conservative kingdom,where showing a womans face in a newspaper still causes a stir,he ignores such restrictions,receiving dignitaries accompanied by his unveiled wife,Princess Ameera. Twitter and Facebook have at times been used by activists inside Saudi Arabia to support campaigns there. A Saudi law that came into effect in February - just after the start of the Arab awakening expanded state control so that online news and commentary websites could be fined or blocked. The stake marks the second prominent international investment that Twitter has taken this year from a region where its service has played a role in protests. DST,the Russian internet investment firm,paid $400m for 5 per cent of the company. The investment is the latest in a series of bets in tech companies taken by Prince Alwaleed. The 5 per cent stake he took in Apple on Steve Jobss return to the company in 1997,at the time worth some $25m,is now worth more than $17bn. © 2011 The Financial Times Limited
