As Charlie Sheen Tweets, Twitter’s Valuation Grows

15-Mar-2011

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An eternal optimist, Liu-Yue built two social enterprises to help make the world a better place. Liu-Yue co-founded Oxstones Investment Club a searchable content platform and business tools for knowledge sharing and financial education. Oxstones.com also provides investors with direct access to U.S. commercial real estate opportunities and other alternative investments. In addition, Liu-Yue also co-founded Cute Brands a cause-oriented character brand management and brand licensing company that creates social awareness on global issues and societal challenges through character creations. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Liu-Yue worked as an Executive Associate at M&T Bank in the Structured Real Estate Finance Group where he worked with senior management on multiple bank-wide risk management projects. He also had a dual role as a commercial banker advising UHNWIs and family offices on investments, credit, and banking needs while focused on residential CRE, infrastructure development, and affordable housing projects. Prior to M&T, he held a number of positions in Latin American equities and bonds investment groups at SBC Warburg Dillon Read (Swiss Bank), OFFITBANK (the wealth management division of Wachovia Bank), and in small cap equities at Steinberg Priest Capital Management (family office). Liu-Yue has an MBA specializing in investment management and strategy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing from Stern School of Business at NYU. He also completed graduate studies in international management at the University of Oxford, Trinity College.

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By EVELYN M. RUSLI, NY Times,

Greg Gayne/Warner Brothers TelevisionCharlie Sheen attracted one million followers on Twitter in 25 hours.

The actor Charlie Sheen has posted the word “winning” more than a dozen times since starting his Twitter account on March 1.

It may seem like a peculiar mantra, given the recent spectacle of his life and his many bizarre interviews. But the man, who claims to be a warlock chock full of tiger blood, is indeed “winning” on Twitter. He attracted one million followers in 25 hours, becoming the first user to do so – beating out Twitter personalities Ashton Kutcher and Lady Gaga.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Sheen had 2.4 million followers.

An analyst with Wedbush Securities, Lou Kerner, argues that Mr. Sheen’s popularity also justifies a high valuation for the micro-blogging site.

In a new note, Mr. Kerner compared Mr. Sheen’s tweets to “Lazy Sunday,” a video clip from “Saturday Night Live” that went viral on YouTube in 2005, with two million hits in one week.

” ‘Lazy Sunday’ launched YouTube into the spotlight and 10 months later, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 Billion,” he wrote.

“At this point, the floor of Twitter’s valuation should be $10 billion. If they sell, they should get a premium to that,” he said in an interview with DealBook on Wednesday.

One investor, Chris Sacca, has bought about $400 million worth of private shares of Twitter through his fund in recent months, implying a valuation of $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion. (JPMorgan Chase is a major investor in Mr. Sacca’s fund.)

That’s up from Twitter’s valuation of $3.7 billion in December, when it last sought financing.

Still, Biz Stone, a co-founder of Twitter, told Reuters last week that there were no plans for an initial public offering any time soon.

For Mr. Sheen, Twitter has become a highly profitable endeavor. Through Ad.ly, a marketing service that matches celebrities and brands, Mr. Sheen is selling endorsements through Twitter messages – his current going rate, according to the report, is more than $50,000 per tweet.

“It’s so embryonic, marketers love Twitter – it’s what’s happening right now and that’s so powerful,” Mr. Kerner told DealBook.

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