Facebook IPO

[Benicio del Toney]

They are killing Facebook with all the new features.

A lot of people have stopped using it.

[Horatio Caine]

the best bit is microsoft bought a 1.6% stake off facebook for $240million

[Benicio del Toney]

but the one thing facebook has that no1 cant touch iis the advertismnt market

How you mean?

Google still owns that market by a distance.

[revs]

is there anything left to make off FB once shares go on sale though?

[Horatio Caine]

but the one thing facebook has that no1 cant touch iis the advertismnt market

How you mean?

Google still owns that market by a distance.

na im talking about deep research advertising, for example when people "like" coca cola that information helps coca cola filter there target audience etc

[Horatio Caine]

is there anything left to make off FB once shares go on sale though?

well i was watching bloomberg west and they said shares may go for $38 -$40 per share....plus facebook are yet to tap into the chinese market....once that happens,boii!!

[JOHN DOE]

f*ck*ng happy for this guy tho

200 mill up are ya crazy

[Benicio del Toney]

na im talking about deep research advertising, for example when people "like" coca cola that information helps coca cola filter there target audience etc

Nah real talk, used FB ads a few times before, it is highly targeted.

Everyone drinks Coke tbh but I get what you mean lol.

Google still won't be toppled though.

[Horatio Caine]

yeah that was a very smart move,he had to wait a while but boii, pay check is lookin kriss now

[Captain Planet]

so how can u buy shared now then for facebook before di march cash in?!?!?

/

i just realised u cant, as it is not a PLC

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK

Lol swear your working for a broker?

/

Whoever can get the shares at the IPO price will be smiling a few hours later as we saw in the LinkedIn IPO

[Niall Ferguson]

Read a story somewhere some graff artist painted the walls of their first office and got paid in shares. His shares are now estimated to be worth about 200 mill when it floats. Don't rememebrr which paper it was in though

Evening Standard. I read it too.

[MARVELL]

Read a story somewhere some graff artist painted the walls of their first office and got paid in shares. His shares are now estimated to be worth about 200 mill when it floats. Don't rememebrr which paper it was in though

no mercy.

[O.Man]

Facebook IPO: five things we learned

Mark Zuckerberg is king, a lot of people are going to make a lot of money, and, basically, it's all about the cash

that gives him control over their votes. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP

The covers are off at Facebook. On Wednesday, the social network finally confirmed that it intends to sell shares in an initial public offering (IPO), and gave outsiders the first real insight into its business practices. Now that the dust has settled, what have we learned?

Mark Zuckerberg is in control

If you thought Rupert Murdoch had a tight grip on News Corp, spare a thought for anyone at Facebook who disagrees with its founder. Mark Zuckerberg owns 28% of the company's shares, but has struck an agreement with 56.9% of shareholders that gives him control over their votes. "Mr Zuckerberg has the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets," the filings to the SEC revealed.

Even if Zuckerberg dies, he's in control. "Additionally, in the event that Mr Zuckerberg controls our company at the time of his death, control maybe transferred to a person or entity that he designates as his successor."

Expect the corporate governance people to lose it over this at some stage.

A lot of people are going to get very rich

No price has been set for the company yet, but estimates are ranging between $75bn and $100bn. At the top end of that range, Zuckerberg's stake is worth $28bn, equivalent to the gross domestic product of North Korea.

James Breyer, a Facebook board member and a partner at Accel Partner, Facebook's largest investors, stands to make a fortune. Accel owns 11.4%. Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook's co-founder and former chief technology officer, has 7.6%. Yuri Milner, the Russian tycoon behind investor DST Global, will also increase his billions, since DST owns a 5.5% stake.

Peter Thiel, legendary Silicon Valley investor and co-founder of PayPal, owns a 2.5% stake, and since he reportedly paid $500,000 for it in 2004, it's now potentially worth $2.5bn. Bono's Elevation Partners has a 1.5% stake. Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has less than 1%, so she may get less than $1bn. But she did earn $300m last year in shares and salary.

Graffiti artist David Choe, who chose to take shares in Facebook over cash for painting the social network's Palo Alto headquarters in 2005, walked away with stock that is likely to be worth about $200m.

Even the losers are winners

Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's early partner at Harvard who was depicted as having been cheated out of his share of the company in the film The Social Network, does not own more than 5% of Facebook – his holding was not listed in yesterday's documents – but he is still likely walk away with a fortune.

"What a ride," he tweeted on Wednesday.

Even the Winklevoss twins, Zuckerberg's mortal enemies, come away winners. They hold 1.2m shares from a court settlement over their claims that Zuckerberg stole their idea. Those shares are now potentially worth $300m.

But you won't make any money any time soon

For one thing, Facebook shares won't begin publicly trading for several months, because the SEC needs to assess the validity of a potential IPO. But even once trading begins, getting in on the action is a long shot, and for retail investors (ie the man in the street) odds are you will have to buy when the price has already spiked.

It's the cash, stupid

The biggest reason for any IPO. Facebook only has $3.9bn in cash right now, a paltry sum if it's looking to strong-arm competitors like Google, which has cash and short term investments of close to $45bn. The documents talk a lot about mobile – a fast growing area for Facebook. Analysts expect that Facebook will use the cash to improve its mobile site, make acquisitions, and roll out new features.

Then there's the fact that Facebook's investor base is growing. Federal law mandates companies with more than 500 investors and $10m in assets to disclose quarterly financial results and certain other information.

So, basically, they had no choice. Poor dears.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/02/facebook-ipo-five-things-we-learned

[RaiKkoNen]

Anyone who sells on their shares will get bodied by chargeable gains tax on share disposals, but even after tax the gain will still be A LOT.

Those people who owned shares and earn less than £37k pa are laughing tbh, getting taxed at 18%. But working high up and owning shares in FB probably means they earn more than 37k. So that's alteast 28% tax.

If only you knew aye, watch people throw their money into the stupid ideas of some white nerdy college kid from now on

[JOHN DOE]

No price has been set for the company yet, but estimates are ranging between $75bn and $100bn. At the top end of that range, Zuckerberg's stake is worth $28bn, equivalent to the gross domestic product of North Korea.

http://www.guardian....ings-we-learned

filthy cheapshot at NK

[MARVELL]

thats western economics for you. company has only $3b in cash, revenue is less than $5b, but it "floats" and is suddenly worth $100billion

WTF?

no wonder when sh*t hits the fan certain man just get a shotgun and leng their fam down.

Economics of greed

[Supermalt]

^

true. looking at it that way it does'nt make sense.

when Google floated it was overated as well, but look at it now

facebook better have some new sh*t in the pipeline .

a tablet, charging companies to host there service like netflix etc

[Benicio del Toney]

Would people buy an FB tablet though?

The netflix thing could work if integrated well, it could be like a cyber home version of you and your friends going cinema.

Stream starts at a certain time and can't be paused, chatroom on the side, dunno if there is something like this at present.

[The Somalian]

Facebook WILL eventually die out lose value just like bolt, hotmail, msn, MySpace, bebo, and anything else u signed up to over the past 13 years. It's technology evolve or extinct.

Remember vinyl gone

Tdk gone

VHS gone

DVD on way out

Even football styles and systems

[Benicio del Toney]

I have a feeling them floating is them seeing the beginning of the end.

But maybe that's just me.

[hardface]

I have a feeling them floating is them seeing the beginning of the end.

But maybe that's just me.

Agree.

''Get rich now while we still can'' manouvere

[Horatio Caine]

yeh coz twitter is "the new thing"...every news correspondent has twitter...but twitter's value isnt that big, facebook are going to be ok i think

[Captain Planet]

it had a good run

[Horatio Caine]

facebook was made for college/school n uni heads...as long as they keep that concept they will be fine,but i know bare heads dat cant stand when facebook f*ck around wid der privacy options

[Supermalt]

Before monopolys or dominant companies come about there are those before it that did a shitty or mediocre job, search engines before google were ok but sh*t, pl were saying software is not important in the 70s or 80s but it made bill gates the richest man in history net worth 100 bill in 1999, and before that the ibm ceo said only 4 pl in the world will need a computer, then apple came and made even ur kids want one. Facebook is set and won't follow its predecessors, social media is too important now and when u think of it u think facebook.