Internet, Initial Public Offering | featured news

Zynga is expected to price its shares on December 15 in one of the most highly anticipated IPOs of the year. The IPO is expected to value the fast growing social gaming company at around $10bn, below some earlier estimates of as much as $20bn.

Facebook is targeting dates between April 2012 and June 2012 for an initial public offering of its stock. The company is exploring raising $10 billion in an IPO that could value Facebook at more than $100 billion.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus wants some of the online game company's early employees to give back stock they own ahead of the company's initial public offering of stock, according to a published report Thursday. The Wall Street Journal said that Pincus, who gave out stock freely to keep top talent early on, developed "giver's remorse."

YelpInc., the online review website, has picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to lead an initial public offering that could value the company at up to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the plans. Yelp intends to file its IPO plans publicly within the next few weeks, said one person familiar with the matter. It's aiming to complete the sale in the first quarter, though timing may change with market conditions, the person said.

When Groupon Inc filed its plan to go public with U.S. regulators in June, Chief Executive Andrew Mason proclaimed in a letter to prospective shareholders that "life is too short to be a boring company."

Groupon Inc is poised to price its IPO $1 to $2 above its current range, responding to stronger than anticipated demand for the biggest U.S. initial public offering in months, three buyside sources said.

Online coupon seller Groupon Inc. is discounting its expectations for its first stock offering. The company, which offers consumers daily deals targeted to their city and preferences, now expects net proceeds of about $478.8 million from its initial public offering of 30 million shares.

The news is surprising because for a long while now this has been a lousy economic climate to do any initial public offering.

I wrote here at Forbes in May about the dangerous trend of unaudited numbers being used by companies, media, and investors to evaluate the potential of these IPOs... As long as they get their return before the gig is up, who cares what the real story is?

Groupon is going to wait at least a couple of weeks before launching the final phase of its initial public offering because regulators still have questions for the daily deals website and the stock market is too volatile, a person familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.