China's Tencent gains backdoor stakes in Facebook, Zinga via $300-million DST investment

Tencent Holdings, China's leading provider of Internet and mobile and value-added telecommunications services will be making a long-term strategic investment of $300 million in Russia's Digital Sky Technologies (DST).

This strategic investment by China's Tencent Holdings in DST gives it a back-door entry to two US companies, social networking giant Facebook and the world's largest social game developer Zynga Game Network Inc (Zinga).

The deal also comes at a time when media had speculated early this month that Facebook was preparing to enter China.

Guangdong-based Tencent, which runs one of the largest web portals in China, QQ.com will invest $300 million and get a 10.26 per cent economic interest in DST.

The deal will also give Tencent approximately 0.51 per cent of the total voting power of DST as well as a seat on the company board.

Early this month, DST and Tencent as well as Russia's ProfMedia had submitted bids for acquiring AOL's instant-messaging service ICQ, which is valued at $300 million according to industry observers.