Russia's Digital Sky Boosts Facebook Stake To 10%: Vedomosti

Russia's Digital Sky Technologies Ltd. has increased its stake in social networking company Facebook Inc. to 10% since first acquiring 2% a year ago, reports Russian business daily Vedomosti. Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine first reported the stake increase, carried out in stages, on April 29.

Digital Sky, or DST, paid $200 million in May 2009 for its initial 2% holding. Since then, company principal and Internet investor Yuri Milner has increased that to nearly 10%--possibly worth as much as $2 billion--by buying shares from early Facebook employees, BusinessWeek said, citing two people familiar with the site operator's ownership structure. Vedomosti said its own sources confirmed this information.

On April 28, AOL Inc. (AOL) said it was selling ICQ, an instant-messaging service popular in Russia, to Digital Sky for $188 million. About a week earlier, DST took the majority of a $135 million financing round for Groupon, a Chicago-based site that offers coupons for restaurants and museums. Last December, DST was the biggest investor in a group that poured $180 million into Zynga Game Network Inc.