Elevation Invests Another $120 Million in Facebook as that IPO Looks More Distant

Elevation Partners has quietly amassed another huge chunk of Facebook shares on the secondary market, according to a recent letter to its limited partners. Elevation spent $120 million for five million more Facebook shares. This is on top of Elevation’s $90 million, 2.5 million share purchase back in November.

That November deal has already gone up 2.5 times in value in a short eight months, making Facebook one of the better performing deals in Elevation’s portfolio and an enviable holding for any firm. Even though the bulk of Elevation’s Facebook shares were purchased at the more recent price, if you blend the two deals, there’s still an on-paper gain. Blended together, Elevation’s 7.5 million shares were purchased at a $14 billion valuation, and Facebook is trading at upwards of $24 billion on the secondary market today.

Sure, the appreciation looks good, but a lot of people– including us when we first broke the story– have alleged that these deals are ones any hedge fund could do. That’s not actually true, according to several sources close to the deal.

Not this elevation — the other elevation. Elevation Parters! Trust me, I didn’t want to use a goofy spelling for my company name and domain, but the domain elevation.com is owned by Bono of U2 and I figured there’s nothing I could offer him that would make him want to sell me the domain — hence my company name…