Craig Mellow, at The Deal Magazine has a fascinating profile of Yuri Milner, the Russian investment banker who runs Digital Sky Technologies, a multi-billion dollar fund. Close connections (The Deal Magazine)
Mr Milner has garnered tremendous amounts of publicity for his investments in Facebook, Groupon and other high flying US companies.
These companies aren't public but their shares can be traded on private markets but only by individual investors and employees in the company, and prequalified private investors with a high net worth. These secondary markets have become larger over the past few years because there has been little demand for IPOs and they provide a capital exit for some shareholders.
At the time of Mr Milner's investments in Facebook, there was a lot of sniggering about the high valuation he was prepared to pay and his willingness to do it on lax terms. It was seen as a naive investment decision by an outsider.
But take a look at this extract from the article, it shows how Mr Milner managed to parlay his growing media profile into making markets, then shifting his investments. Seems like a classic "pump and dump" strategy.