Everything you need to know about Facebook’s IPO today
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang Nasdaq’s opening bell this morning to usher in a momentous day in business history: Facebook’s initial public offering is one of the largest in history, elevating Facebook to be one of the most valuable US companies.
The IPO raised more than $16 billion, making it the richest after that of financial giant Visa in 2008, according to Renaissance Capital, as AFP reports.
The company is valued at close to $104 billion.Facebook is pricing its offering at $38 a share on Thursday, “but the price could be higher when shares begin trading under the FB symbol on the Nasdaq at 11 a.m. Eastern time (1500 GMT),” as Reuters reports. Close to 421.2 million shares are being offered.
Early interest in the new stock was so intense that Facebook this week raised the potential range of its IPO price, the San Jose Mercury News reports, “which was originally listed as $28 to $35. At the final price of $38, most of the shares sold in the IPO went to institutional funds and other big clients of the IPO’s underwriters.”
“Given the demand that they had, it doesn’t take a genius to predict the stock is likely to have a pretty good day,” said Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia according to the Mercury News. “How high does it go? It’s hard to tell.”
Zuckerberg couldn’t help but promote his company’s major move this morning, posting a Facebook status update detailing how Facebook is now listed on the Nasdaq.
Mashable notes the pressure is on Facebook now more so than ever, since the social media giant has to now answer to shareholders, “and those shareholders will expect their investment to grow substantially over time, both short-term and long-term. Facebook needs to choose the projects that will pay off for its investors while still keeping its users happy.”
The website, founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, has rocketed into the world’s most popular social network with 900 million users.
To compare IPOs, Apple debuted with a market value of less than $2 billion in 1980, while Microsoft took its bow in 1986 with a market value of less than $1 billion, as AP writes.
This article originally appeared on Digital Journal [Link]