• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 1, 2011

Small-time investors eager for a stake in Facebook can get some skin in the game by buying shares in Interpublic Group. To be sure, there are many degrees of separation and the strategy only brings tiny involvement. But IPG has begun informing investors that its stake in Facebook has grown into a significant asset.  

For the first time, IPG cited its investment in the social-networking site in a government filing last week, a sign that it has placed a valuation on the position and views it as material.

In 2006, IPG took less than a .05% stake in the private Facebook, which now could be worth close to $200 million. It has not released how much money it put up originally. In its recent SEC filing, IPG didn't disclose what it now values its stake at, only indicating that its investment has "significantly appreciated" from its original cost.

Recent investments by Goldman Sachs and Kleiner Perkins reportedly have helped raise the value of Facebook to $52 billion.

In 2006, IPG looks to have had an option to buy more of Facebook. It invested as sort of an afterthought. The stake was part of an arrangement, where its agencies could gain insight into advertising possibilities in the social-networking arena.

At the time, Facebook's user base was a fraction of what it is now, and the site had not helped start Mideast revolutions.

"We wish [our stake] was a little bigger ... but at the time we invested in Facebook, we were doing it for strategic reasons to learn what was going on," Roth said in June 2008.

The Facebook investment aside, IPG has announced more front-door reasons to invest in the company: paying a quarterly divided for the first time in nine years.