News
BackDate:18 May 2012
Facebook valued at $104bn in IPO
Facebook has valued its shares at $38 (£24) each, ahead of its stock market flotation on the Nasdaq Stock Market today, which would value the 8-year-old company at a staggering $104bn. That would make the social networking company worth more than Walt Disney, Ford, McDonalds and Kraft Foods and would be the second largest ever US-listed IPO, after Visa.
The company, whose revenue last year was $3.7bn, is selling a 15% stake and demand is set to be high when trading begins today, a day after it raised $16bn in an initial public offering.
Mark Zuckerberg, who owns about 25% of the company, stands to gain the most from taking Facebook public. Fellow founders Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin will also become billionaires on paper, as will Napster founder and former employee Sean Parker.
Although Mr Zuckerberg is selling around 30m shares, he will remain Facebook’s largest shareholder, owning 503.6m shares, or a 32% share of the company. Russian internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies and US venture capital firm Accel Partners also hold significant stakes in the social networking company.