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Facebook cofounder Saverin becoming Singapore citizen?

Abhijit — Sat, 12 May 2012 10:02:20 +0000

Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin

Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin has given up US citizenship. His name appears on the Federal Register list of people who have given up US citizenship, published by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) on April 30. So has he become a Singapore citizen?

“Eduardo recently found it to be more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” said Saverin’s spokesman Tom Goodman, reported the Washington Post. Saverin made that move “around September” last year, according to his spokesman, reported Bloomberg.

But a Singapore permanent resident also needs a passport to travel abroad. So which country’s passport is Saverin carrying now that he is no longer a US citizen?

Is the Brazilian-born Saverin, who became a US citizen in 1998 after moving to the US in 1992, still a Brazilian citizen? The Wikipedia entry on Brazilian nationality law says: “Since 9 June 1994, acquisition of another country’s passport should not cause loss of citizenship.”

Bloomberg reported:

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc, renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.
Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin’s stake is about 4 percent, according to the website whoownsfacebook.com. At the high end of the proposed IPO market capitalization, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. His holdings aren’t listed in Facebook’s regulatory filings.

The Wall Street journal, however, said that “his stake is about 2 per cent, according to a person familiar with the matter”.

Forbes said:

If Saverin kept his U.S. passport, he would be paying up to 40 per cent in income tax, next year.
In Singapore, where he has resided since late 2009, top earners are taxed 20 per cent on earnings. Saverin will also not be paying capital gains tax on his investment.
Couple this with the celebrity status he enjoys in Singapore. Saverin is frequently spotted out and about on Singapore’s social scene and drives a Bentley.

Yahoo reported:

The Brazilian-born Saverin became a U.S. citizen in 1998 after moving here in 1992. Saverin surrendered that citizenship last year, becoming a resident of Singapore, a nation that lacks a capital gains tax. The move could mean a massive tax savings considering that Saverin’s 4% stake in Facebook is valued in the range of $3-4 billion.
Saverin won’t escape scot-free — giving up his citizenship requires him to pay an “exit tax” on his shares of Facebook. Essentially, he’ll have to pay the capital gains tax for the increase of value Facebook experienced while he was a citizen. Still, because he’s giving up his citizenship before the record-setting Facebook IPO, the tax basis for those holdings can be reported much lower than had he waited until after.
The idea of giving up your citizenship to realize tax benefits is being hailed as a smart idea, at least from a financial perspective. It’s becoming increasingly common, too — 1,780 people gave up their citizenship last year, as compared to 235 in 2008. In fact, avoiding U.S. taxes has become a growth industry: PayPal co-founder (and early Facebook investor) Peter Thiel has invested in an experiment to create floating cities off the coast of California, just outside Uncle Sam’s reach.

Saverin cofounded Facebook in April 2004 with Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, said PCMag.com, adding:

Saverin, the Brazilian-born college classmate of Zuckerberg, was the first investor in the company when it was created in a Harvard dorm room in early 2004. But Saverin’s relationship with Zuckerberg and Facebook became contentious within just a few short months.
As depicted in the film The Social Network, soon after Zuckerberg moved the fledgling company to Palo Alto, Calif. in June 2004, Saverin was squeezed out of Facebook, reportedly at the urging of early angel investor Peter Thiel, former Facebook president Sean Parker, and others.
A lawsuit Saverin filed against the company resulted in an undisclosed settlement, which appears to have included the restitution of at least a portion of his one-time 34 percent stake in the company and his recognition as a Facebook co-founder in the company’s documentation.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month:

The Brazilian-born billionaire’s skirmishes with Mr. Zuckerberg over the future of Facebook were dramatized in the 2010 film “The Social Network,” which portrayed Mr. Saverin as a naive entrepreneur.
Mr. Saverin was squeezed out of Facebook early on, and found his stake in the Internet juggernaut diluted to less than 10% from 34%. Today, after more dilution and sales of some of his shares, his stake is about 2%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
But 2% can go a long way, given that Facebook filed documents Thursday to go public with a valuation of up to $96 billion. It can go especially far in Singapore, a financial center better known for banning the sale of chewing gum than for a thriving technology scene.
Since his arrival in 2009, the 30-year-old Mr. Saverin has attracted intense interest here. Singaporeans avidly track his nocturnal social habits. Many hoped he would fund local tech start-ups, but so far his local investments, which include a cosmetics firm, have been limited.
Mr. Saverin is regularly spotted lounging with models and wealthy friends at local night clubs, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in bar tabs by ordering bottles of Cristal Champagne and Belvedere vodka, according to people present on these occasions. He drives a Bentley, his friends say, wears expensive jackets and lives in one of Singapore’s priciest penthouse apartments.
In Singapore, Mr. Saverin is a Kardashian-like figure, with scores of fans hoping for a sighting. Local websites have set up forums with threads entitled “Where does one meet Eduardo Saverin in Singapore?” Bloggers and journalists have written long posts after spending mere seconds with the billionaire.

Asia Tatler says:

He has invested in several promising startups, including Qwiki, Jumio, and Anideo, a Singapore-based company he co-founded. Saverin holds an economics degree from Harvard University and served as president of the Harvard Investment Association.

The Anideo website says the company develops mobile utility applications.

Wikipedia notes:

As of 2010, Saverin has liquidated at least $250 million worth of Facebook stock to later-stage investors such as Digital Sky Technologies, as well as via secondary exchanges like SharesPost.

Hillary Clinton meets Mamata Banerjee

Abhijit — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:10:22 +0000

Hillary Clinton in Kolkata

Abhijit — Mon, 07 May 2012 05:10:10 +0000

Hillary Clinton in Kolkata

I love the Clintons and Obama. So I was sad when Hillary Clinton said it’s time for her to leave politics. “It’s time for me to step off the high wire,” she said after a woman in the audience said she had wanted Hillary to be elected president in 2008 and Barkha Dutt added Hillary could run again in 2016. “Oh dear, you will get me into trouble,” Hillary said with a laugh before adding she wanted to retire from politics.

Hillary was speaking at La Martiniere for Girls school in Kolkata today. The event was livestreamed on Facebook by NDTV and hosted by the NDTV anchor, Barkha Dutt.

Had a great time moderating Hillary Clinton’s Kolkata TownHall. Found her candid, firm, focused, funny and easy going all at once.
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) May 7, 2012

Poised and smiling, Hillary spoke candidly, striking a chord with the audience. A woman in the audience said at the end, “You have not changed, you have just got better.” Yes, indeed, Hillary is great.

“I want to know from the chief minister of West Bengal her vision of the future,” she said, ahead of her meeting with Mamata Banerjee later today. When they meet, she said, “I will raise the US desire to open the Indian market to multi-brand retail.” Delhi also wants to open the market but can’t because of opposition from regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee.

Hillary, who arrived in Kolkata from Dhaka yesterday, said she would also talk about the need for India to share Teesta river waters with Bangladesh. Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh wanted to sign a river water treaty with Bangladesh but could not – again because of opposition from Mamata. She says agriculture and irrigation in West Bengal will suffer if so much water is allowed to flow into neighbouring Bangladesh.

I hope Hillary gets along well with Mamata.

And here’s wishing Hillary success in Delhi too. She will be going to Delhi this afternoon after meeting Mamata Banerjee.

India and the United States have a sound relationship, she said, but there will be differences from time to time. Hence the need for an ongoing dialogue, she added.

Hillary Clinton arrives in Kolkata

Abhijit — Sun, 06 May 2012 11:04:29 +0000

No related posts.

Remembering Satyajit Ray

Abhijit — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:21:28 +0000

Devi (1960), a film by Satyajit Ray

The eminent Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray (May 2, 1921 – April 23, 1992) died on this day. He was the greatest Bengali filmmaker.

April 23, marks the 20th death anniversary of Satyajit Ray, a master of Indian cinema. We pay a tribute To his art recapturing the timeless — me VS me(@shellinecpl) April 23, 2012

See more Twitter tributes and stills from his films.

Shakespeare’s birthday and St George’s Day

Abhijit — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:02:50 +0000

St George and dragon

Google.co.uk is running this image’s day. It’s St George’s Day — and traditionally celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday, too. The Writer’s Almanac reminds us why it’s celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday:

Today we celebrate the birthday of William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England (1564 -1616). We don’t know his birthday for sure, but he was baptized on April 26th, and since infants were usually baptized about three days after their birth, his birthday is celebrated today.

Oxford Classics sticks to the facts and tweets

On this day in 1616 both #Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died, and is also the generally accepted day of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564.
— Oxford Classics (@OWC_Oxford) April 23, 2012

Author Neil Gaiman has more fun, tweeting about Shakespeare’s birthday and St George’s Day.

Happy #worldbooknight. Happy Shakespeare & Cervantes birthdays. Happy St George’s Day. Fight dragons & windmills, read books & quote wisely.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) April 23, 2012

Arianna Huffington also has a top tweet on Shakespeare’s birthday, taking time off from politics.

Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare! Whoever you were, there’s never been anyone like you.
— Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) April 23, 2012

The Writer’s Almanac is running this Shakespeare sonnet today. It certainly strikes a chord.

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Listening to Roy Orbison on his birthday

Abhijit — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:40:18 +0000

Today is Roy Orbison’s birthday as well. One of the great rock and roll voices of all time. We’ll be hearing some of his music, too.
— Bill Bennett (@WilliamJBennett) April 23, 2012

Today is the birthday of Roy Orbison. I love him. So here are two videos. Yes, that’s former US education secretary and drug czar William John “Bill” Bennett, who served under President George HW Bush. Bennett also likes Orbison.

I love Pretty Woman.

Only the Lonely, another Roy Orbison classic.

Mamata Banerjee among world’s most influential people

Abhijit — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:44:15 +0000

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee

“On the streets, she out-Marxed the Marxists.” @ishaantharoor on Mamata Banerjee in this year’s TIME 100 time.com/time/specials/…
— Neha Thirani (@nehathirani) April 19, 2012

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is the only Indian leader on Time magazine’s 2012 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, joining the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (Here’s the full Time magazine list.) Ironically, the news came on a day when teachers in her state capital, Kolkata, staged a protest rally because a university professor was arrested by the police for emailing a cartoon about her.

Honest, plain-living, courageous but intolerant of criticism, she has already alienated some people after coming to power last May after 34 years of communist rule in the state. Five days ago, Kolkata’s leading newspaper published a fiery article demanding her resignation. The newspaper didn’t even carry the news of her making the Time magazine list, as Derek O’Brien, a Trinamool Congress member of parliament, pointed out.

Mamata Banerjee in Time mag’s world’s Top100 influential list.No big deal,na!Not a line abt it in her home citys The Telegraph — Derek O’Brien (@quizderek) April 19, 2012

Mamata Banerjee’s influence doesn’t really extend beyond West Bengal. Her party, Trinamool Congress, holds only 19 seats in the 542-member Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Indian parliament. All the 19 Trinamool Congress members of parliament in the Lok Sabha were elected from West Bengal. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government needs their support to remain in power.

Her party is part of Manmohan Singh’s coalition government and has ministers in his cabinet. She does not always see eye to eye with him and has held up economic reforms such as direct foreign investment in multi-brand retail, preventing the likes of Walmart from setting up shop in India.

Unabashedly populist, she is against reforms that might affect villagers and small businesses because West Bengal is overwhelmingly rural. Only 29.1 million or 31.8 per cent of its 91.3 million population is urban. As long as she has rural support, Mamata can retain power.

Her priorities are different from Manmohan Singh’s.

But Manmohan has to humour her because he needs her support. Maybe that’s why Time said she is “poised to play an even greater role in the world’s largest democracy”. Here’s what Time said:

Though much of Indian society remains hidebound in patriarchy and tradition, strong women still prevail in the nation’s political life. Mamata Banerjee rose to the fore last year when she and a movement she built from the grassroots wrested control of her home state of West Bengal, ending 3 ½ decades of sclerotic communist rule. Banerjee, 57, spent years struggling on the margins, her Trinamool Congress Party a feisty rabble compared with the leviathan of West Bengal’s communists. Referred to by her supporters as Didi, or “elder sister,” she was labeled by critics as a mercurial oddball and a shrieking street fighter. But ultimately she proved to be the consummate politician. Through successive elections, Banerjee steadily expanded her power base while chipping away at those of her opponents. Her lower-middle-class background was no obstacle in a country notorious for its dynasties. In New Delhi’s back rooms, where political horse trading is the name of the game, she excelled. On the streets, she out-Marxed the Marxists. And as chief minister of her home state, she has emerged as a populist woman of action — strident and divisive but poised to play an even greater role in the world’s largest democracy.

Indonesia earthquake biggest since Japan quake in March 2011

Abhijit — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:58:15 +0000

The 8.6 magnitude earthquake off Aceh, Indonesia, today is the biggest since the 9 magnitude Tohoku quake in northern Honshu, Japan, on March 11, 2011. That is what I found on checking the United States Geological Survey’s Significant Earthquake and News Headlines Archive. The 8.6 magnitude earthquake was followed by an 8.2 magnitude quake, also off the west coast of northern Sumatra. There were two major earthquakes in the same region today. The 8.6 struck at 8:38:37 UTC and the 8.2 at 10:43:09 UTC, just two hours later. That’s devastating. Here’s what I read on Twitter about tremors being felt in places as far apart as Kolkata, in India, and Singapore.

Indonesia earthquake tremors felt in Kolkata, Singapore

Abhijit — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:22:44 +0000

A tsunami watch was issued for countries across the Indian Ocean on Wednesday after a large earthquake hit waters off Indonesia, sending residents pouring from their homes in panic.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 8.7-magnitude quake was centered 20 miles (33 kilometers) beneath the ocean floor around 269 miles (434 kilometers) from Aceh’s provincial capital.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a tsunami, not that one is imminent.

The tremor was felt in Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia’s west coast shook for at least a minute. (From Huffington Post)

8.9 Quake in Sumatra. Indonesia issues tsunami warning after quake. Alert in 28 countries. Tremor felt in kolkata, b’lore, chennai and patna
— Suniti Damani (@SunitiDamani) April 11, 2012

#Kolkata metro stopped at 2.42 pm as precaution,passengers evacuated reports NDTV’s Monideepa Banerjee. #earthquake — suparna singh (@soupiesingh) April 11, 2012

Earth Quake in my #city kolkata and arround #INDIA #digha beach #Saltlake City and #kolkat‘s largest IT
— Titash Ghosh (@imtitash) April 11, 2012

#Tremors from Indonesia #quake felt in Singapore, Thailand and southern India – Reuters witnesses — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April 11, 2012

Singaporeans across the island report feeling tremors from 8.7-magnitude Aceh quake bit.ly/HzRscU
— The Straits Times(@STcom) April 11, 2012

Tsunami watch issued. Waves from possible tsunami are forecast to reach Singapore 7.51 AM tomorrow (local time) tdy.sg/HGyRtz
— TODAY (@TODAYonline) April 11, 2012

8.9 magnitude quake rocks Indonesia, tsunami warning issued …. My chair was rocking in Kolkata !!!
— Parth Sanyal (@pathsanyal) April 11, 2012

Tremor in Kolkata, buildings develop cracks bit.ly/IjOB6Q
— Kolkata Rockz (@KolkataBhalo) April 11, 2012

Emergency evacuation in office due to earthquake. Only mild tremor in Kolkata.
— Dipankar Saha (@buddydip) April 11, 2012

Office evacuated for ten minutes #earthquake #tremors in #kolkata
— Amrita (@immortalbee) April 11, 2012

We are okay sohini. Thanks. Was evacuated from metro right now. Hows it in mumbai. RT @Mittermaniac: #Kolkata, are you fine?
— Sreemoy Talukdar (@sreemoytalukdar) April 11, 2012

Kolkata Metro services resume after being suspended for 45 mins.The tsunami warning has been scaled down for… fb.me/1OsJGZyTy
— Anindya Bhaumik (@SEO_Expert_Andy) April 11, 2012

Several hotline callers have reported feeling tremors in various parts of Singapore, including Bukit Panjang, Bendemeer Road, Farrer…
— Channel NewsAsia (@cnalatest) April 11, 2012

A friend’s wife here in Singapore called that she just felt another tremor (about 5 minutes ago), and it’s bigger than the earlier one.
— Indra Pramana (@IndraPr) April 11, 2012

People living in the eastern side of singapore already felt a little bit of tremor. Wow, that’s pretty scary.
— Marcus Chan (@MCsucram) April 11, 2012

Gosh, that was a strong tremor in Singapore. The building shook for at least 15 seconds #in
— Arun Chandrasekaran (@AnalystArun) April 11, 2012

Tremor (due to earthquake somewhere) in Singapore O.O Was swaying like crazy. All’s well now! Phew.
— Meradine Wan way~! (@ChariceSing) April 11, 2012