Facebook, Facebook Ipo | featured news

How to put all this into a Facebook valuation? To justify the big numbers being tossed around – $100bn and up – several things must happen in the next five to seven years. The business needs to become much less capital intensive (inclusive of acquisitions) over time, as Google and Microsoft have done. That is the easy part. But margins must also stay near today’s level of about 50 per cent – which would be uncharted territory. And sales would have to grow at least sixfold in this period.

Facebook Inc. is planning to set the price range for its impending initial public offering in the high-$20s to mid-$30sa share, valuing itself at roughly $85 billion to $95 billion...

Facebook will go public on May 18, a published report says, in one of the most highly anticipated tech initial public offerings since Google went public in August 2004.

Despite rumors of delays, Facebook could begin its roadshow as soon as early next week, according to two people briefed on the company's plans.

Facebook’s market debut has been expected to be in mid- to late May, but a report from CNBC indicates that the process could take a little longer than analysts expected. The report, citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” pinpoints June as the new expected time range for the IPO and says Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been so busy with business and acquisitions that the company hasn’t had time to put the final touches on its prep for going public.

Facebook Inc reported its first quarter-to-quarter revenue slide in at least two years, a sign that the social network's sizzling growth may be cooling as it prepares to go public in the biggest ever Internet IPO.

Facebook will list its shares with Nasdaq, according to media reports. That would be a big win for the Nasdaq, which competes fiercely with NYSE Euronext Inc., especially for an initial public offering as large as Facebook's, pegged at $5 billion. The New York Times and CNBC cited anonymous sources on the potential listing.

Facebook will pay a fee of just 1.1 percent to underwriters of its initial public offering, a source with knowledge of the company's plans said on Monday.

Even with that infusion of money, California's legislative analyst says he thinks state revenue may be billions less than Gov. Brown has forecast. Facebook's eagerly anticipated Wall Street debut could pump nearly $2.5 billion into California coffers over the next five years, the state's top budget analyst said Monday.

Facebook Inc. is already trading like a public company as insiders and wealthy investors use private marketplaces to buy and sell stock in the social- networking company ahead of its initial offering.