Facebook Co-Founder Renounces His US Citizenship

Eduardo Saverin gave up his American Citizenship which he had got in the year 1998, for Singapore residency status. Eduardo was a Brazilian and has living in Singapore since 2010 and he prefers to remain indefinitely.

A spokesman for Mr. Saverin insisted his client did not renounce his citizenship for financial reasons. “I have worked with him for over a year, and that never came up,” said Tom Goodman, the spokesman. “Obviously, it was a big decision, but he’s making all these investments in Europe, Asia and the U.S. It just seemed a lot simpler.”

This news came out just the day before Facebook was expected to go public. But Mr. Goodman said this decision was made month back. His renounce has nothing to do with either IPO or Tax. Mr Saverin has shares in prepublic start-up companies.

Mr. Saverin, 30, co-founded Facebook while at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, all of whom remain United States citizens. At one time Mr. Saverin owned about 34 percent of the company, but his shares were severely diluted during several financing rounds, leading to a lawsuit that was settled out of court with undisclosed terms.

Eduardo owns less than 5 percent of Facebook now, but expected to grow by $3.5 million after the public offering. He sold $250 million worth of facebook share ahead of the public offering.