Saudi Prince laughs off $80m Priceline losses

Chipper Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal has laughed off his $80 million loss in Priceline.com.

Well, he does still have another $20 billion to go at.

But royalty's top e-investor has got his fingers burnt, and has no plans to get further into dotcom debt, according to an interview with Bloomberg from his New York hotel suite.

"We don't see any further investments in the Internet," he said.

He has already ditched holdings in IT companies such as Xerox ($129 million stake), AT&T ($150 million), and Daewoo ($150 million), along with $50 million investments in dotcoms DoubleClick, InfoSpace and Internet Capital Group, since May.

He does plans to hold onto some - including Priceline ($20 million), eBay ($51 million), Amazon ($60 million) and AOL, which he recently described as "the anchor of the industry", revealing plans to up his stake in the ISP to $2 billion.

Regarding Priceline, Alwaleed is upbeat: "We believe we have a case for bringing them back." But the blue-blooded investor has told Priceline founder Jay Walker to get his finger out.

"If he does not deliver, he cannot regain confidence," he said. ®

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