Facebook floats on stock market May 17, will be valued at $100 billion
by JohnThomas Didymus (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)
Facebook, the world’s largest social network, is expected to go public on May 17. The online giant is expected to be valued at $100 billion. Analysts say that Facebook’s is the most anticipated stock offering from Silicon Valley since Google in 2004.
The May 17 date, according to TechCrunch, is subject to SEC approval of relevant paperwork, including those relating to recently purchasedInstagram.TechCruch reports Facebook is expected to raise $10 billion from its initial public offering of shares, though it may be a smaller sum. But the IPO will also depend on approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Examiner reports that Facebook valuation reflects current levels of trading in the secondary market and also matches a report on how Facebook won over Instagram.
The flotation will make Facebook among the largest public companies in the world with companies like McDonald’s, Amazon.com and Visa.According to a sources, “Investors want as high a price as possible so that the secondary market won’t look like a problem.”
TechCrunch reports that “with 2.51 billion fully-diluted shares outstanding, the valuation desired would price the company at around $40 a share.”
According to Daily Mail, the world’s largest social network had very humble beginnings. It began as a dorm room project for a Harvard dropout, Mark Zuckerberg, but has since grown and reached the top in less than a decade.
According to Facebook’s preliminary filing, the company’s net income rose 65 percent to $1 billion in 2011, with a revenue of $3.7 billion.
Valued at $100 billion, double the value of Hewlett-Packard, Facebook’s IPO will be bigger than that of any dot-com company expecting to go public, Daily Mail reports.
This article originally appeared on Digital Journal [Link]
News Corp sells MySpace to Specific Media for $35 million
Today News Corp. announced it has sold its struggling social networking site MySpace to ad firm Specific Media for $35 million. The selling price is a far cry from the $580 million News Corp paid for MySpace in July 2005.
A press release from News Corp, acquired by AllThingsD, quotes Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook: “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest.”
For a few years, News Corp has been trying to shop MySpace to other suitors, asking for at least $100 million. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was reportedly interested in the music-focused social network but the deal fell through for undisclosed reasons.
News Corp is unloading a site whose traffic has plummeted since its high point in 2006. The number of new unique users decreased 11 percent and its monthly pageviews is reported to be 18 million (partly thanks to Facebook stealing market share). In 2006, its monthly pageviews hovered close to 30 billion.
MySpace’s new owner is among the largest online advertising networks in the U.S. and “helps marketers buy digital ads across the Web, online video, mobile and even the TV,” the Wall Street Journal writes. Specific Media is based in Irvine, Calif., and has raised more than $110 million in funding.