Usmanov sells off entire Alibaba stake, retains small stake in Apple
MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) - USM Holdings, which is controlled by Alisher Usmanov and his business partners, has entirely divested its stake in Chinese Alibaba.
DST Global, a fund controlled by Usmanov and Yury Milner, Silver Lake and Chinese fund Yunfeng Capital led a consortium that invested $1.6 billion in Alibaba in 2011. The deal was structure as an acquisition of shares from Alibaba employees and co-owners under an offer. The stake they acquired was estimated at the time at less than 5% of the company, which had a total value of $32 billion. Late in 2015, Usmanov said a portion of the Alibaba stake was sold. "We withdrew from this company at a fairly high level. It was worth $250 billion," he said, estimating the return on his investment at 500%-600%.
"We said 'bye-bye' to Facebook, then 'bye-bye' to Alibaba, but we have a lot of Chinese assets in that very technological fund that we organized. Positions are being maintained in JD.com, Xiamoi, and two-three Chinese companies. We highly value these investments, we will wait for the development of the next stage of those companies that are only just approaching an IPO," Usmanov said in an interview with Rossiya 24 television.
Usmanov's fund retains a small stake in Apple. "No, not entirely. There is a little bit," he said when asked whether the Apple stake has been sold.
"We got a very good return," Usmanov said when asked to comment on his investment in the iPhone maker.
Usmanov pointed out that he is maintaining his investment in the Indian startup Ola, which is an analog to Uber, and in a U.S. maker of lidar systems for driverless cars.
Usmanov plans to continue investing in the U.S. high-tech sector. "We have now invested money and can already say that we have virtually the biggest stake in a company engaged in creating glass for autonomous driving, that is, lidars," he said.
The project is currently undergoing the process of preparation for use in the automotive industry "at the highest level," Usmanov said.
"We have made a joint enterprise with this company together with a major supplier of sensors for the global automotive industry and are preparing, so to speak, for the next stage to prove that this startup deserves the attention of manufacturers," he said.
As previously, Usmanov did not name the company or the size of the investment. Investors in lidar makers are also major players in automaking and robotics. Usmanov has previously spoken of "indirect participation" in projects by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.