The U.S.A. investment bank JP Morgan Chase is discussing a purchase of 10 percent of microblogging service Twitter. According to The Financial Times citing unnamed sources, the bank estimates the above named package at $450 mln, and the entire service is considered to be worth $4.5 bn. The parties did not give any official confirmation of the ongoing negotiations.
On February 24 one of the blogs on the Wall Street Journal website reported that JP Morgan Chase had established a specific fund for investments in up-and-coming Internet projects, such as Twitter and Facebook. J.P. Morgan Digital Growth Fund LP amount of finance amounted to $1.22 bn, and it is planned to increase this amount up to $1.3 bn.
The Financial Times also says that approximately one third of the fund’s money might also be invested in such projects as IP telephony Skype or Zynga Company, developer of gaming applications for social networks. The same amount of funds is expected to be invested in six other projects, including group discounts service LivingSocial.
Twitter along with Facebook is one of the fastest growing services among social Internet resources. As of the end of 2010 the number Twitter accounts exceeded 200 mln. Revenue of the service in 2011 is expected to amount to $100-110 mln. In early February of 2011 The Wall Street Journal wrote that Google and Facebook, potential buyers of Twitter, estimated the service at $8-10 bn.
