Facebook wants a few investor friends
Share offering likely to be among biggest in U.S. history
Mark Zuckerberg is officially updating Facebook Inc.’s status from “private” to “public.”
In one of the most eagerly anticipated events in Silicon Valley history, Facebook, the world’s largest social network with nearly 850 million users, plans to issue shares and list itself on a public stock market later this year.
Wednesday, after the close of business on U.S. markets, Facebook announced it had filed regulatory documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to hold an initial public offering (IPO) valued at $5 billion US.
In the days leading to the filings, experts had expected Facebook to seek a valuation between $5 billion and $10 billion.
Facebook is planning to have its shares trade under the ticker “FB.”
In its regulatory filing, Facebook said it generated $3.71 billion US in revenue last year. According to the filing, Zuckerberg controls about 28.4 per cent of Facebook.
“Facebook was not originally created to be a company,” Zuckerberg says in the opening line of a letter in the IPO filing. “It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected. We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.”
Founded in Zuckerberg’s dorm room in 2004, Facebook is expected to be valued at between $75 billion and $100 billion when the dust settles on the IPO.
Facebook’s plans to go public have been the worst-kept secret in Silicon Valley since the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the company would file a preliminary prospectus as early as Wednesday.
Facebook’s IPO is expected to be one of the biggest yet for a technology company and one of the 10 big- gest IPOS in the history of corporate America.
Facebook is expected to put about 10 per cent of the company up for grabs, while Zuckerberg will continue to be the company’s largest shareholder.
The deal is certain to generate new billions for the site’s creator and founder, Zuckerberg, as well as early investors like Peter Thiel and Napster co-founder Sean Parker.