Cloud Computing: Massive Facebook IPO Apparently on the Runway
November 29, 2011
Facebook is thinking of going public in the spring and raising $10 billion – a record amount for a high-tech or Internet IPO or pretty much any other IPO – on an estimated valuation of more than $100 billion, according to both Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal’s anonymous sources.
Apple, now the most valuable high-tech company, currently has a market cap of around $349.57 billion.
Facebook could put in its papers to IPO before of the end of the year. The Journal says it is talking to the SEC about the timing of the filing and suggests the IPO could come off sometime between April and July…
Facebook was only supposedly worth $50 billion in January when it took in a $1.5 billion investment from Goldman Sachs and friends.
Even if it doesn’t go public it will still have to disclose its financial results by April 30, 2012, because it will have more than 500 shareholders by the end of this year. If it doesn’t IPO it will have many of the headaches of a public company without the cash.
It is supposed to have 800 million users, with a half-billion logging in daily, and reportedly expects its next billion to come from smartphone and tablet aficionados, according to Bloomberg.
In a September press release eMarketer estimated Facebook’s revenues this year will be $4.27 billion, up from $2 billion last year, based largely on advertising.