12 years ago

Facebook’s IPO and Corporate Retail Roadshow. 

We all knew that Facebook was going to become the most valuable US Web company in History. In 2004 Google had a $23 billion valuation. Yesterday (15-5-2012) the current raised IPO share price gave the Menlo Park California-based company a value between $93 and $104 billion. Huffpost is stating today that If all the shares are sold at the high end of the expected price range, the offering could total more than $18 billion. That could actually make Facebook one of the largest IPOs ever. In August 2010 the Agricultural Bank of China had the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) surpassing the one set by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 2006 of $21.9 billion. With Facebook’s IPO of 421 million shares , keep in mind that only a small share of company is having an IPO on Friday, we can easily do the math: $104 billion : $1 billion users=$100,-per user. The IPO of Linkedin was $12 billion : 34 million users= $235,- per user, Groupon $12.7 billion : 50 million users=$254,- per user, HomeAway $2 billion : 560.000 users=$3571,- per user. And don’t forget the faulting Dutch IPO of the WorldOnline deal €12 billion : 2 million users=€6000,- per user. Then the Facbook IPO is pretty ok wouldn’t you say? Facebook will trade under the symbol “FB” on the technology-heavy Nasdaq. Under a very smart dual-class stack structure, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will retain 57.3 percent of the voting power of the shares. On May 4th Facebook released a half-hour long, IPO roadshow video. This of course for potential investors, not for the common man I’m afraid. This hilarious scripted 30 minute video features CEO Mark Zuckerberg, VP Product Chris Cox, COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman. If you haven’t seen it yet. It’s just 3 clicks away. Start here. Oooh! And Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his US citizenship around September 2011 and now lives in Singapore.