Founder of 'Russia's Facebook' sells12 percent stake, but 'not going anywhere'
Founder and CEO of Russia’s largest social network, Pavel Durov, has sold his 12 percent stake in VKontakte to an ally of the company’s second-largest shareholder. Experts polled by Vedomosti newspaper estimate the sale is worth $360–$480 million. Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of Megafon, one of Russia’s largest mobile carriers picked up the shares of the social network often referred to as "Russia's Facebook". Tavrin is a business partner of VKontakte’s second-biggest shareholder Alisher Usmanov, who owns shares through his Mail.Ru Group Ltd. “What you own, sooner or later starts to own you,” Durov, 29, wrote on his own VKontakte page. VK, for short, means "in contact" in Russian. “I’m not going anywhere and will continue to watch over the quality of VKontakte,” Durov said. The site draws 60 million users a day according to Durov, and is the most popular social network for Russian-speaking internet users, with four times as many as Facebook. Durov touts it has the “b...