News reports Wednesday afternoon verify that Microsoft beat out Google and Yahoo! for a piece of Facebook.

According to The New York Times, Microsoft will invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. The investment values the three-year-old social networking site at $15 billion.

As part of the deal, Microsoft will sell the banner ads appearing on Facebook outside of the U.S. The two companies will split revenue. Last year, Microsoft struck a deal with Facebook to run banner ads on the site in the U.S. through 2011.

Just last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he would not pursue an acquisition of Facebook (or of Yahoo!). But apparently Microsoft executives believed they could not afford to lose out against Google on the investment deal.