Bono to become richest rock star because of his Facebook stake

The initial public offering of Facebook’s shares has been making a lot of lucky investors happy lately, particularly U2 frontman Bono. The singer’s private equity firm, Elevation Partners owns 1.5 percent of Facebook’s shares. It is estimated that Bono’s shares will be worth close to $1 billion (£630 million). The investment was initially made in 2009 with the purchase of $210 million (£128 million) worth of Facebook shares. The social networking giant is now valued at $65 billion (£40 billion), therefore quadrupling Bono’s investment in the company.

Forbes recently named U2 as the world’s highest-earning musicians grossing over $736 million (£447 million) after finishing their Canadian 360 world tour. This investment would now make Bono worth as much as $1.1 billion (£695 million), surpassing Paul McCartney as the world’s wealthiest rock star.

This investment however is all on paper and can fluctuate from all the variables in the market. The singer is also not allowed to sell all his shares at once to prevent dropping the company’s valuation. Bono plans on putting some of the money from his investment towards his charity, ONE Foundation.