Eduardo Saverin

Eduardo Luiz Saverin  born March 19, 1982) is a Brazilian billionaire entrepreneur and angel investor based in Singapore. Saverin is one of the co-founders of Facebook. In 2012, he owned 53 million Facebook shares (approximately 2% of all outstanding shares), valued at approximately $2 billion at the time. He also invested in early-stage startups such as Qwiki and Jumio

The majority of Saverin’s fortune is derived from his stake in Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook. He owns about 2% of the company, according to its 2022 proxy statement. The world’s largest social network has about 3.8 billion active users each month including about 3 billion on Facebook, according to an April 2023 company presentation.

One of the earliest shareholders of Meta, Saverin’s stake was diluted by successive rounds of financing. After settling a lawsuit with the company over his ownership in 2009, Saverin held about 5% of the shares, according to David Kirkpatrick’s book “The Facebook Effect.” He agreed to sell some of his stock to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s DST in 2010, according to an attachment to Facebook’s 2012 initial public offering prospectus, which doesn’t disclose details on the sales. It was the biggest technology IPO in history at the time.

The value of Saverin’s investments includes more than $500 million of proceeds from the sale of Facebook shares, according to company filings and an analysis of Bloomberg data as of Feb. 11, 2019, as well as the effect of taxes and market performance. It also includes stakes in startups such as Jumio and Perx that are based on transaction prices at secondary exchange SharesPost in 2010.

The billionaire renounced his US citizenship in 2011. Americans who give up their passport owe what’s effectively an exit tax on the estimated capital gains from their stock holdings at the time of the renunciation. Saverin’s bill would be about $255 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The bill can be deferred indefinitely until he actually sells the shares so it’s included as a liability until the shares are sold.

In 2015 Saverin co-founded the venture capital firm B Capital Group, where he is a managing partner based out of its Singapore office.

Deepa Balji, a spokesperson for B Capital Group, declined to comment on Bloomberg’s net worth calculations.

Biography

Early life and education

Eduardo Luiz Saverin was born in the city of São Paulo to a wealthy Jewish-Brazilian family, and his family later moved to Rio de Janeiro. Saverin’s father, Roberto Saverin, was a businessman working in clothing, shipping, energy, and real estate. His mother, Sandra, was a psychologist. He has two siblings. His Romanian-born grandfather, Eugenio Saverin (born Eugen Saverin), is the founder of Tip Top, a chain of children’s clothing shops. In 1993, the family immigrated to the U.S., settling in Miami, Florida.

Saverin attended Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami. He then attended Harvard University, where he was a resident of Eliot House, a member of the Phoenix S.K. Club, and president of the Harvard Investment Association. While an undergraduate at Harvard, Saverin used his interest in meteorology to predict hurricane patterns and made $300,000 via investment in oil futures.^[15][17] In 2006, Saverin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. He is a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity (Eta Psi chapter of Harvard University).

Career

During his junior year at Harvard, Saverin met fellow Harvard undergraduate, sophomore Mark Zuckerberg. Noting the lack of a dedicated social networking website for Harvard students, the two worked together to launch The Facebook in 2004. They each agreed to invest $1,000 in the site. Later, Zuckerberg and Saverin, each agreed to invest another $18,000 in the operation. As co-founder, Saverin held the role of chief financial officer and business manager On May 15, 2012, Business Insider obtained and released an exclusive email from Zuckerberg detailing how he cut Saverin from Facebook and diluted his stake. Zuckerberg privately stated at the time, “Eduardo is refusing to co-operate at all … We basically now need to sign over our intellectual property to a new company and just take the lawsuit … I’m just going to cut him out and then settle with him. And he’ll get something I’m sure, but he deserves something … He has to sign stuff for investments and he’s lagging and I can’t take the lag.” Zuckerberg’s attorney warned Zuckerberg that the dilution might trigger a lawsuit for breach of fiduciary duty. Facebook filed a lawsuit against Saverin, arguing that the stock-purchase agreement Saverin signed in October 2005 was invalid. Saverin then filed a suit against Zuckerberg, alleging Zuckerberg spent Facebook’s money (Saverin’s money) on personal expenses over the summer. In 2009, both suits were settled out of court. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed and the company affirmed Saverin’s title as co-founder of Facebook. Saverin signed a non-disclosure contract after the settlement.

In 2010, Saverin co-founded Aporta, an online portal for charity. In 2015, Saverin established his venture capital firm, B Capital, investing in Southeast Asia and India. In 2016, Saverin’s fund closed initial deals of over $140 million in Asia, including Ninja Van, a Singaporean logistics company that engages in last mile parcel delivery in Southeast Asia.

In addition to forming B Capital, in early 2020, Saverin invested in Antler, an early-stage VC fund and startup accelerator founded by his friend and Harvard classmate, Magnus Grimeland.

In media

Saverin is played by Andrew Garfield in the film The Social Network, which is based on Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires.

Personal life

Saverin immigrated to Singapore in 2009. Saverin and Elaine Andriejanssen, an Indonesian national of Chinese descent, became engaged on March 27, 2014, and were married on June 25, 2015. They met while they were both studying at their respective universities in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, he at Harvard and she at Tufts. Andriejanssen comes from a wealthy family that runs several businesses in Indonesia.

Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship in September 2011, thereby avoiding an estimated US$700 million in capital gains taxes. This generated media attention and controversy. Saverin claimed that he renounced his citizenship because of his “interest in working and living in Singapore”, and denied that he left the U.S. to avoid paying taxes.

Milestones

• 1982 Eduardo Saverin is born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• 1992 Saverin moves to the U.S., becoming a citizen six years later.
• 2004 Cofounds Facebook; he is cut from the company months later.
• 2009 Secures stake in legal settlement; moves to Singapore.
• 2010 Agrees to sell some Facebook shares to DST.
• 2011 Renounces his U.S. citizenship; remains Brazilian.
• 2012 Facebook sells shares in what was then the biggest technology IPO in history.
• 2012 The social network crosses the 1 billion members mark.