Despite all the good-natured pokes (or is that Super Pokes?) that Kara Swisher has taken at young Mark Zuckerberg, she’s got a scoop about Facebook, and it’s not even Beacon-related: the company has attracted a $60-million investment from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing — often known as Li Ka-ching, for his ability to turn gigantic heaps of money into even larger heaps of money.
A couple of interesting points to note: Facebook has apparently managed to get the $240-million investment from Microsoft and the $60-million from Li Ka-shing (which apparently didn’t come through either of his usual holding companies) without having to a) protect them from any downside or drop in the company’s valuation, or b) give them a seat on the board of directors. That’s pretty incredible.
It may not be Zuckerberg, but someone on Facebook’s negotiating team has brass cojones — and what’s better, the company continues to get what it is asking for. Rafat Ali at PaidContent sees a possible arrangement between Facebook and Tom Online, the Chinese portal that Ka-shing is chairman of. The big unanswered question, of course, is what the heck is Facebook planning to do with that $300-million?