Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov told Bloomberg that he recently spent about $100 million buying Apple shares in anticipation they will rise.
“I believe in the future of this company even after Steve Jobs,” he said to the news agency. “When the company lost $100 billion of its market value, it was a good time to buy its shares, as the capitalization should rebound.”
“Nothing is eternal, but for the next three years I believe Apple is a very promising investment, especially given large dividend payments and buybacks,” the billionaire added.
Usmanov’s wealth has been estimated at $17.6 billion by Forbes and at $19.8 billion by Bloomberg. Although he made his first billions through mining and lumber operations, telecommunications, Internet and media assets now account for more than half of Usmanov’s fortune, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Usmanov controls, in particular, DST Global, an international fund with shares in Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Alibaba, and several other leading Internet companies, as well as the Mail.ru Group, one of the leading Internet groups in Russia.
This past December, Usmanov had announced that he was now focusing on China.