The investor who walked from Facebook

This is pretty amazing: Facebook is valued higher than Deutsche Bank:

"Facebook is not a publicly traded company. Yet, it left behind not only Deutsche Bank and BMW, but also other competitors like Yahoo!, eBay and Time Warner in terms of valuation."

But, while Russian investor Yuri Milner has doubled-down with a $50 million investment (along with $450 million in fresh capital from Goldman Sachs), the German investor Thomas Heilmann has decided to cash in his chips, calling the $50 billion valuation of the Web site "crazy" ("irre"):

"Die aktuelle Bewertung von Facebook ist irre, auch wenn etwa Goldman Sachs immer noch damit Geld verdienen könnte", sagte Heilmann der Zeitung. Das Unternehmen sei fast mit dem 50-fachen seines Umsatzes bewertet. Vergleiche mit den Spekulationsblasen der New Economy im Jahr 2000 wollte der Unternehmer gleichwohl nicht ziehen. "Es geht um einige wenige Konzerne wie Facebook, Groupon oder Twitter. Wenn deren Bewertungen platzen, merkt das kaum jemand." Die Übertreibungen auf dem Rohstoffmarkt seien gefährlicher, sagte Heilmann, der die Werbeagentur Scholz & Friends mitgründete und stellvertretender Vorsitzender des CDU-Landesverbandes Berlin ist.

(The current valuation of Facebook is crazy, even though Goldman Sachs could still make a great deal of money,"  Heilmann told the newspaper.  The company is valued at 50-times its revenue. At the same time, the investor doesn't want to draw parallels with the Internet Bubble of 2000. "We're only dealing with a small number of companies like Facebook, Groupon or Twitter. If these valuations collapse hardly anyone will notice."  The run up of commodity prices is far more dangerous, said Heilmann, the co-founder of the advertising agency Schoz & Friends and deputy chairman of the CDU state organization in Berlin.)

Heilmann is certainly correct in his wariness, based on traditional valuation criteria.  But, as we've seen with Google, there is a potential gold mine in the personal data of hundreds of millions of users, and Zuckerberg has only just begun to monetize this treasure trove.  Facebook has made all the right moves – so far.