Five Trends That Will Shape the Web in 2011

Analysis: Facebook fund tests SEC resolve
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The efforts by Facebook to raise as much as $1.5 billion outside of regulated markets is the latest test of the walls between private and public markets. Goldman Sachs this week approached its best private wealth clients with a tantalizing offer: a special fund that will own shares in the fast-growing Social Networking giant. Goldman gets to offer clients a hot investment opportunity, while Facebook gets to remain a private company. It is the latest in a growing ...

Social Network: Tech Bubble 2.0? (GS)
But the real eye popping fact is that this latest deal values Facebook at $50 billion. That’s right, $50 billion, which is more than the current Market Cap of Time Warner, Baidu, Yahoo, and almost twice that of Dell, Inc. Even though Facebook is not publicly traded, the company has raise about $850 million to date in total through a secondary market. Facebook’s value reportedly has roughly tripled over the last year--not bad for a company that’s only in business for six years....

The SEC's Facebook problem
The SEC's challenge in the secondary market January 4, 2011 1:34 PM SecondMarket, Sharespost, NYPPEX all let wealthy investors treat private companies, like Facebook, as publicly traded ones. Are they flouting securities laws, or reinventing them for the 21st century? By Kevin Kelleher, contributor Sorry, small investors. If you want to buy shares in Facebook, Groupon or Twitter, you're going to have to wait until their IPOs. That much is certain now that the Securities and Exchange Commissi...

Goldman, Digital Sky invest in Facebook: source
By Alexei Oreskovic and Nadia Damouni San Francisco/NEW YORK | Mon Jan 3, 2011 7:25pm EST San Francisco/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, in a deal that values the world's No.1 Internet Social Networking company at $50 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The firms also plan to raise at least $1 billion in additional funding for Facebook, the person said speaking on condition of an...

SEC may force Facebook flotation
Source: The Guardian Facebook might be forced by US Regulators to take the Social Networking company public as new investors pile in "It's a lot easier to go public than to be public," observed Veteran technology investor Frank Quattrone last year. That insight might prove doubly prophetic for Facebook, which is under fresh scrutiny about when it might take – or be forced to take – the Social Networking company public following a fresh $500m (£320m) round of investment led by Goldman Sachs th

US probe after Goldman investment in Facebook
A Goldman Sachs investment of nearly half a billion dollars into Facebook has spawned a Probe by US Regulators eager to safeguard the dividing line between public and private companies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. US media earlier this week said that investment giant Goldman had poured 450 million dollars into Facebook and that a Russian Investment Firm, Digital Sky Technologies, sank another 50 million dollars into the Social Networking site. The Journal reported however th...

Facebook-Goldman Sachs Deal Could Be A Test For The SEC
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (By Joseph A. Giannone and Sarah N. Lynch): The efforts by Facebook to raise as much as $1.5 billion outside of regulated markets is the latest test of the walls between private and public markets. Goldman Sachs this week approached its best private wealth clients with a tantalizing offer: a special fund that will own shares in the fast-growing Social Networking giant. Goldman gets to offer clients a hot investment opportunity, while Facebook gets to remain a private compan...

Friends With Benefits
William D. Cohan on Wall Street and Main Street. Tags: Facebook, Goldman Sachs Can Goldman Sachs, the profit-seeking missile of high finance, really...

Goldman Just Bought The Zynga IPO, Too
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Goldman's already got the guy on the left. How about the guy on the right? Word has it Russian holding firm DST actually brought Goldman into the Facebook deal, and that it's all part of planning for an IPO. This makes sense, because DST is particularly tight with Goldman. Did you know that DST is also invested in Groupon and Zynga, two other huge startups looking to IPO soon? While Groupon is backed by Morgan Stanley, and therefore already ha...

Tech takeovers expected to soar with cloud demand
Technology companies, which fueled more than $100 billion in acquisitions last year, are expected to spend more in 2011 in a race to harness surging demand for Cloud Computing and security services. Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. led purchases of more than 2,700 companies and still spent only a fraction of the cash piles they accumulated during the Recession. The Dollar amount of announced tech deals gained 12 percent, lagging behind a 26 percent jump in worldwide mergers, acco...

Is Facebook Goldman Deal A Loser For NASDAQ NYSE?
When news of Goldman Sachs $2 billion investment in Facebook first broke, many interpreted it as the final sign of an imminent IPO. Goldman was injecting cash into Facebook on favorable terms in order to win itself the inside track to manage the IPO, many reasoned. But NYU Professor Scott Galloway has an intruiging theory. He says we may be seeing the emergence of a new, semiprivate IPO. In this model, a small group of blue-chip investors get a piece of Facebook. Shares become more liquid, e...

Facebook's $50 Billion Goldman Goldmine
Far from turning up the heat for Facebook to go public, Goldman Sachs' $450 million investment, along with Digital Sky's $50 million more, may actually delay the social-networking giant's IPO, says David Kirkpatrick....

Facebook-Goldman loser: IPO 'industry'
Scott Galloway, the Red Envelope founder who currently teaches marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, this morning went on Bloomberg TV to discuss Goldman Sachs' investment in Facebook. He believes that we'll see deals like this in the future, and that they basically represent private IPOs (no matter how paradoxical such a term might be). He's hardly the first to say this, but I don't think anyone else has channeled Eisenhower: "I think that the SEC, the NYSE, the NASDAQ and the whole&#...

Goldman's Stinky Facebook Deal
Got two different notes from readers this morning about this latest Goldman gambit involving Facebook shares. It seems that Goldman has set up a "special purpose vehicle" and alerted top clients that through this SPV they will have the opportunity to invest in an as-yet-unnamed company, which reportedly is Facebook. The way this looks to Felix Salmon over at Reuters, and his explanation makes a lot of sense to me, is that this SPV is potentially a way around SEC reporting requirements for public...

Goldman, Digital Sky invest in Facebook: source
By Alexei Oreskovic and Nadia Damouni San Francisco/NEW YORK | Mon Jan 3, 2011 7:25pm EST San Francisco/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, in a deal that values the world's No.1 Internet Social Networking company at $50 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The firms also plan to raise at least $1 billion in additional funding for Facebook, the person said speaking on condition of an...

Report: Investments Value Facebook At $50 Billion
Social networking behemoth Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian Investment Firm in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, The New York Times reported. Goldman invested $450 million and Digital Sky Technologies invested $50 million, the newspaper reported Sunday in its online edition, citing people involved in the transaction that it did not name. Goldman has the right to sell part of its stake, up to $75 million, to the Russian firm. The report said represent...

Facebook raises $500M from Goldman Sachs
Social Networking site valued at $50B © Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press Facebook has raised $500 million US from Goldman Sachs and a Russian Investment Firm in a deal that values the company at $50 billion. Facebook has raised $500 million US from Goldman Sachs and a Russian Investment Firm in a deal that values the social networking site at $50 billion, the New York Times reports. Goldman invested $450 million and Digital Sky Technologies invested $50 million, the newspaper reported Sunday ...

Goldman Sachs boosts Facebook value to $50 billion
A major infusion of financing that has elevated the projected value of Facebook Inc. to $50 billion may be the most concrete sign yet that the social-media king is becoming the center of Online Advertising and commerce, experts said Monday. The social-media world rippled with news over the weekend that the Palo Alto firm has received a $500 million infusion - $450 million from the formidable Wall Street Investment Firm Goldman Sachs Group and $50 million from Digital Sky Technologies, the Russ...

Five reasons why I'm not buying Facebook
Before you start scrambling to get a piece of the Facebook pie, it's worth looking at a few glaring Risk Factors. Would you give this guy $2 million? Excuse me for raining on the Facebook parade, but yesterday's news about the $450 million investment by Goldman Sachs (GS) and $50 million from Russia's Digital Sky Technology didn't move me the way it seemed to move others. This despite the suggested $50 billion valuation, as big and beautiful a number as the Stock Market has seen in some time. I...

Friends With Benefits
By WILLIAM D. COHAN NYT Can Goldman Sachs, the profit-seeking missile of high finance, really make money by investing $450 million in Facebook, at a vertigo-inducing price that values the social-networking company at $50 billion? On first blush, the answer would appear to be no. After all, in May 2009, the company was valued at $10 billion. Last August, Facebook was valued at $27 billion and now it’s $50 billion — for a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits. ...

Goldman's "friends" get week to mull Facebook bet
By Joseph A. Giannone and Matthew Goldstein NEW YORK | Wed Jan 5, 2011 8:11am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs is not giving its multimillionaire clients a lot of time or information to think about investing in a $1.5 billion Facebook private offering. According to a customer who received a letter from Goldman, clients were given just until the end of this week to decide whether they want a piece of the Social Networking giant. The world's largest Investment Bank this week agreed to inv...

'Do Not Track' Rules Would Put a Stop to the Internet As We Know It
Michael Zaneis is senior vice president and General Counsel of the Interactive Advertising Bureau Check the weather, peruse the latest sports scores, find out if that sweater you fell in love with has finally gone on sale. Chances are you've done at least one of these things today online and none of it would be possible without digital advertising. The Internet has quickly transformed our daily activities, giving us access to anything and everything with a click. And just as quickly, it could ...

Summary Box: Facebook valued at $50 billion
WHAT? A $500 million investment from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor values Social Networking behemoth Facebook at $50 billion, according to a New York Times report. COMPARISON: That's more than twice Yahoo's market capitalization and it's about equal to what well-established companies such as Boeing and Kraft Foods are worth on the open market. But it's still a ways off from Amazon.com or Google. AN IPO? Facebook is in no rush to go public, but may be pushed to do so once it reaches 500 sh...

Will Goldman employees be allowed in Facebook round?
When Goldman Sachs begins soliciting $1.5 billion for Facebook, one call it won't be making is to its own employees. This time last year, it looked like Wall Street was about to be ejected from the "equity" part of Private Equity. Early versions of Financial Reform Legislation included the so-called Volcker Rule, which would have prohibited banks from sponsoring or managing private equity funds (among other prohibitions). Bank employees would not be allowed to invest in the fund, unless they ar...

Report: Facebook Nets $500 Million Investment
Monday, January 03, 2011 By Barbara Ortutay, Associated Press In this May, 26, 2010 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the social network site's new Privacy settings in Palo Alto, Calif. Facebook has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian Investment Firm in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, The New York Times reported. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) New York (AP) - A reported investment by Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor of $500 m...