Facebook is friending Wall Street: The Internet social network is going public in a stock offering that could value it at up to US$100 billion, eight years after its computer-hacking CEO Mark Zuckerberg started the service at Harvard.
The much-anticipated status update means anyone with some cash will be able to own part of a Silicon Valley icon that quickly transformed from dorm-room startup to cultural touchstone.
If its initial public offering of stock makes enough friends among investors, Facebook will probably make its stock market debut in three or four months as one of the world’s most valuable companies. Facebook, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., hopes to list its stock under the ticker symbol, “FB,” on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Stock Market.
In its regulatory filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook Inc. indicated it hopes to raise US$5 billion by selling a small percentage of its shares to the public in its IPO. That would be the most for an Internet IPO, easily surpassing the US$1.9 billion raised by Google Inc. in 2004. The final amount will likely change as Facebook’s bankers gauge the investor demand.
Joining corporate America’s elite would give Facebook financial clout as it tries to make its service even more pervasive and expand its global audience of 845 million users. It also could help Facebook fend off an intensifying challenge from Google, which is looking to solidify its status as the Internet’s most powerful company with a rival social network called Plus.