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Facebook Reportedly Filing $5 Billion IPO Today

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the price-of-a-friends-list dept.

hypnosec writes "Today is the day when Facebook may be submitting all required paperwork to regulators for its $5 billion initial public offering. According to the source close to the deal, Facebook has selected Morgan Stanley along with four others — Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Barclay's Capital to handle this IPO. Morgan Stanley will be taking "lead left" role in this supposedly biggest IPO from Silicon Valley. According to International Financing Review, the preliminary target of $5 billion will be increased by many folds in coming few months as a response to the demands of investors. Sources close to this matter disclosed that this might turn out to be defining moment for current web investments. The deal might rise to $10 billion which eventually will make Facebook a social networking empire valued between $75 billion to $100 billion. In fact, $75 billion is definitely an undervaluation compared to previous expectations."

2 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Watch it grow. by vlm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You're assuming it'll grow. For a good laugh check out a recent zerohedge post (ZH is kind of the /. equivalent for the economic community?) showing graphs of share price as a % of IPO price for numerous recent (last year or so) tech stocks. All cratered below IPO price except for zynga which is somewhat volatile.

    To have a bubble, first you have to have growth, and we're just not seeing that in recent tech IPOs.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  2. Re:How do the investors get paid? by stanjo74 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    FB is the One Entity that knows about everything that happens in peoples lives. FB can do a lot more with the type of information they have than Google. I'm not saying it's moral, but nothing can stop FB from using the information any way they can make money, especially with new ownership (after the IPO).

    Examples:

    - Political parties spent $120+ on a vote last elections. How much would a political party pay FB to know the names and contact info of undecided voters or voters who seem to be able to influence others?

    - Your dishwasher just broke, you complain about it on FB. How much Sears or BestBuy would pay to be notified this same instance about your misfortune?

    - You buy a vacation with Travel Agent 1, go there to find out the hotel is a dump, you bitch about t on FB. How much would TA2 pay to know about this and contact you with an alternative offer?

    The possibilities are endless, especially for the new owners with zero moral standards like Goldman Sachs and the likes. The growth will not come from more subscribers, but with ever increasing ways to analyze the information flow.