Facebook goes public. Raises 16 billion. Third largest in history.

[Outlaw]

Facebook Prices Third-Largest IPO Ever, Valued At $104 Billion

Facebook has priced its initial public offering at $38 per share, making it the third-largest IPO in U.S. history.

At that price, the IPO would value the social networking giant at $104.2 billion and make the offering worth $16.08 billion, behind only Visa and power company Enel by size of the offering. Facebook is also the largest venture-backed IPO on record, according to Dow Jones. For comparison, Google’s IPO in 2004 was $1.67 billion and Google had a valuation of $26.4 billion.

Facebook priced at the top of its $34 to $38 per share range, showing the strong investor demand for the stock. This week Facebook raised the price range of the offering from a range of $28 to $35. Then the company increased the size of the offering from selling shareholders. The Menlo Park, Calif. company is selling 421 million shares, 180 million from the company and 241 million from selling stockholders.

Bankers on the deal include Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Allen & Co, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

The company, started in Mark Zuckerberg‘s dorm room at Harvard University, has grown into a global phenomenon. Facebook now has 901 million monthly active users and is still growing. Facebook generated $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, up 88% year-over-year from $1.97 billion, and net income was $1.0 billion, up 65% year-over-year from $606 million. First quarter 2012 revenue was $1.058 billion, up 45% year over year from $731 million. Net income however was down, at $205 million, from $233 million in the year-ago period.

For consumers, Facebook has changed the way people communicate and interact online and through mobile devices. For many brands, Facebook has meant a massive change in how they communicate with their consumers in a more open, faster and interactive way. A whole ecosystem of startups including names such as Buddy Media, Hearsay Social, Wildfire Interactive, Vitrue and Lithium, has sprung up to help companies manage this new interaction.

For startups and application developers, Facebook has meant a whole new distribution channel. Facebook remains the largest source of social media traffic for many startups and for some, Facebook is the largest source of non-paid traffic. For social gaming companies like Zynga, now itself worth billions, they were built on Facebook’s platform, growing to millions of users via Facebook’s viral channels.

Venture capital firms that have won big after investing in Facebook include Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital Partners and Founders Fund. Other later investors include Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Elevation Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

What’s Zuckerberg’s net worth after the IPO? About $16.9 billion, not including 60 million unexercised Facebook stock options, according to my colleague Ryan Mac. A number of other billionaires such as Reid Hoffman, Mark Pincus, Peter Thiel and Jim Breyer are also selling shares in the IPO.

Facebook is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq tomorrow with the ticker “FB.” The question now is what price the stock will open at.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomioger...-38-per-share/

Say hello to the new evil empire.

[Tekki]

I don't know what to think on this. In order to retain its astronomical value, it has to keep making gains like that, year over year. I simply can't fathom it happening.

[kuronosan]

Not to mention once people find out the shareholders want to sell their information off to make those profits they will drop off faster than fuckers on Netflix.

[archibaldcrane]

http://www.thereformedbroker.com/201...medium=twitter

http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp-...5/FB-close.jpg

[Churchill]

I like how it's deemed "Not manipulation".

[Tajin]

Not to mention once people find out the shareholders want to sell their information off to make those profits they will drop off faster than fuckers on Netflix.

People is glued to that shit harder than myspace and you can facebook from p. Much every cell nowadays. Haters gon hate but facebook (or social networks) are here to stay.

[Correction]

People is glued to that shit harder than myspace and you can facebook from p. Much every cell nowadays. Haters gon hate but facebook (or social networks) are here to stay.

The primary issue is whether or not Facebook can maintain a level of revenue growth that stockholders want to see. At some point there's going to be a lot of pressure to extract more value per existing facebook user and this may come in the form of even more obnoxious, privacy-impacting policies at which point it becomes easier to dislodge yourself from the service, much iike with what happened at MySpace.

[Omnipotent]

Bought in @ 34/share. On a restriction for 6 months, here's to staying above 34 for 6 months!

[Maguspk]

Watch the video they made directed at potential investors for their IPO, the COO mentions their plan to introduce Ads directly into the News Feed, complete with a proof of concept.

Facebook Ads work to some extent but it's really difficult to judge how they will do because you cannot really compare them to the success of Google Ads. Although similar, Google Ads have the huge benefit of being further down the 'funnel' so to speak. That is to say, when someone searches for a term and sees an associated ad, there is an intent there and the person is much more likely to click and be interested in the Ad. Facebook Ads are not really tightly tied to intent but more tied to an audience and their current needs as best they can deduce.

Facebook has huge potential though, think about the scenario in which Facebook is able to direct ads which the user will want to see, based on their friends and what they will read in their news feed. I'm not talking about posting a status about a Wedding and seeing photographer/flower ads, I'm talking about Facebook using the knowledge they have about you and your social circle to decide what you will be doing in the near future. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Heavencloud]

I dont think facebook will be popular in 2020... Would not invest long term, but short term it seems pretty sound.

[Correction]

I'm talking about Facebook using the knowledge they have about you and your social circle to decide what you will be doing in the near future. Pretty interesting stuff.

Usually FB ads yield a ton of bullshit because it's pure lexical parsing of posts you make and click on, especially if you don't use check-in apps that let people stalk you for free. For example, if I say 'fuck grapes' I'm likely to get an ad about grapes.

[Correction]

Hear that?



Also to continue from yesterday: AGENCY BOSS: Facebook Ads Are 'Some Of The Worst Performing Ad Units On The Web'

The problem with Facebook ads, Coleman says, is that "when people socializing, which is what Facebook provides, they aren't in a mode of being upon to having intrusive advertising be a part of it."

"If you were talking on the phone with someone, you wouldn't want it to be interrupted with an ad."

[Niiro]

Revenue from sticking ads in people's faces isn't nearly as valuable as the aggregate personal information of nearly a billion people and what you could potentially do with it.

[Ragnus]

Gonna laugh if Facebook shuts down because they went out of business. Never going to happen but one can only hope.

[Lenus]

Can only hope facebook goes under, will be a glorious day.

[Tyrath]

lol why? If you don't like it, don't use it.

[Drex]

I wonder how much the underwriters ate in trading losses to preserve their IB profits, lol. Feel bad for the people that bought in, but you should never buy a stock just because you like it. It's not enough to have a "good" company or product (and that's questionable in FB's case, if we take good to mean sustainable growth and profits), you have to consider the price too. Too many people wasted money for the novelty of owning a share of Facebook without bothering to care how much it cost.

[Correction]

I wonder how much the underwriters ate in trading losses to preserve their IB profits, lol.

You can probably do the math yourself. It's a hilarious number.

[archibaldcrane]

It's kinda hilarious that Zuckerberg is the one who came out good on this - maximizing his company's value at launch, instead of the IBs eating up all the post-launch IPO boom.

[Ragnus]

Kid did go to and drop out of Harvard. Not surprised he knows how to fuck people over while giving them the feeling that they're getting a big deal.