SEC Rule Likely to Trigger Facebook IPO in 2012

Facebook IPO Or Disclosures Could Come By 2012
San Francisco — With so many investors becoming fans of the company, Facebook will be legally required to begin sharing more information about its finances and strategy by April 2012, according to documents distributed to prospective shareholders. Some of the numbers that began trickling out Thursday were eye-popping – most notably a Net Profit margin of nearly 30 percent, much higher than most people had previously speculated. The owner of the world's largest Internet social netwo...

SEC Rules Could Push Facebook to an IPO in 2012, or Maybe Not
Facebook has indicated that it expects to expand its investor base to more than 500 folks this year, pushing it into the realm where the Securities and Exchange Commission will require it to disclose its nitty-gritty financial results to investors and the public. And according to a Wall Street Journal report, that pending document dump may be enough to push the closely watched Social Networking giant into rolling out an IPO by April 2012. Under SEC rules, private companies that exceed the 500-...

LinkedIn reportedly planning to go public soon
The social-networking scene heated up even more Thursday with news that LinkedIn Corp. is planning to go public later this year, a move that would make it the first such company to launch an initial public offering. The social-networking site for professionals has hired Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. to complete an initial public offering prospectus by the First Quarter, according to Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources. LinkedIn's IPO plans were first reporte...

Facebook to go public?
NEW YORK, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Privately held U.S. technology giant Facebook said in a document sent to investors it would cross a barrier this year that could force it to go public. Facebook sent the 100-page document to "a select group of investors," The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. In the position paper, the firm said it would have more than 500 investors sometime this year, the number the Securities and Exchange Commission considers the limit for a privately held company. This week, Faceb...

Report: Facebook planning IPO for 2012
Facebook is planning to go public at some point next year, according to documents sent to Goldman Sachs clients selected as potential investors. Facebook reportedly reached an agreement recently that would allow a select group of Goldman clients to invest $1.5 billion in the Social Networking firm, which is currently privately held. The deal would be structured so all of the investors would count as one client in order to avoid rules that force private companies to disclose their financial re...

US probe after Goldman investment in Facebook
Stumble This! 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 report...

Goldmans Leaked Memo to Rich Investors Exposes Facebooks Actual Earnings
Source: New York Magazine Well, now we know why Goldman Sachs was so reluctant to give its Millionaire clients any concrete details about the Facebook deal (save that vague appetite-whetting pitch letter that could easily have been mistaken for an entreaty from a Nigerian prince). Leaked copies of a 101-page private placement memo Goldman hand delivered to hand-picked potential investors a little after lunchtime yesterday — probably as they were leaving the Grill Room — reveal closely guarded de..

Facebook likely to go public next year
So perhaps Facebook isn’t trying to avoid an IPO after all. The Wall Street Journal got hold of a 100-page document sent to potential investors showing that the company planned to cross the 500-investor threshold this year. Crossing the threshold triggers the SEC's filing requirements, even if a company's shares don't trade publicly. Such companies must register as a reporting company within 120 days after the end of year in which the limit is breached. At that point, companies typically...

Facebook to go public or disclose data by 2012
Source: Wall St. Journal via MarketWatch Facebook Inc. intends to start publicly disclosing internal financial information or stage an initial public offering of its shares by April 2012, according to a report published Thursday. The Wall Street Journal reported that according to a new private-placement memo being distributed to potential investors in Facebook, the company intends to cross a 500-shareholder limit this year, which could force it to begin publicly disclosing financial data as soon...

Facebook could go public by April 2012
Facebook, the social-networking king that prods members to share their personal lives in public, might itself become publicly traded by April 2012, financial documents revealed Thursday. And published reports said those documents, which spell out a proposed Facebook fund for private investors, also unveiled a major part of the company's financial profile that had remained out of public view: For the first nine months of 2010, the Palo Alto firm had $355 million in net income on revenue of $1.2...

May 1, 2012: The Very Soonest Facebook Would Be *Forced* To Go Public
Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. Update : You know what? This is an interesting story we wrote, but new information has made another post way more relevant. Check it out here. Earlier : If you're going to bet on the day when Facebook will finally "go public," (though not necessarily IPO), we've got a solid guess for you. If the SEC finds that the Goldman-DST-Goldman Clients $2 billion investment in Facebook pushes the company's shareholder count above 500, the very soonest Fa...

Would you invest in Facebook if it goes public with an IPO? | Poll
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personal wealth is estimated at $12bn, as preparations are made for the Social Networking site he founded to go to the stockmarket via an IPO. Photograph: Robert Galbraith/Reuters ...

Facebook appears on path toward IPO, possibly next year
Popular social-networking site Facebook is the latest Internet company rumored to be preparing to go public, causing some investors to wonder if there's a tech IPO revival on the way. Facebook expects to hit the 500-shareholder threshold that would trigger regulations prompting it to publicly disclose Financial Statements and launch an initial public offering next year, according to a document given to potential private investors by Goldman Sachs, Reuters reports. USA Today confirmed the existen...

Why Facebook is in no hurry to go public
A decade ago during the dot-com boom, a red-hot tech company like Facebook Inc. might have been rushing to go public and get in on the Stock Market gold rush. But these days, Facebook and other Internet darlings like Groupon or Twitter can afford to take their time before deciding when - if ever - to open their financial doors in a public stock sale. "Facebook is in an enviable position because there's such a big secondary market for shares where you can achieve Liquidity without going public,...

Facebook may go public by April: report
Facebook may be getting some new friends. The social network site will likely either disclose its financial results or hold an initial public offering by April 2012 in what will be the biggest start-up tech company auction in history, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Facebook will be forced to go public due to federal law, which demands the company release its financials when it reaches 500 shareholders - a number the site is on the brink of hitting. Though share...

Investing in FacebookGoldman-style
Goldman Sachs is controlling the Facebook IPO. Good news for Goldman's favorite investors, bad news for everyone else, says Guest Blogger Addison Wiggin....

LinkedIn may be the first social networking company to IPO
LinkedIn may be the first company to quench investor thirst for the red-hot Social Networking market. Despite months of headlines from Facebook, Groupon and Twitter, the Mountain View, Calif., company which connects more than 85 million professionals could be first out of the gate. It has been quietly preparing an initial public offering for as early as the First Quarter. LinkedIn has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase to advise it after a round of interviews ...

Facebook likely to go public in 2012 - report
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook's days as a secretive and private company are numbered: By early 2012, the Social Networking giant plans to either hold an initial public offering or begin disclosing its financial results, according to news reports. Goldman Sachs is in the process of distributing deal information to wealthy clients interested in joining a Facebook investment pool it is creating. In that deal memo, Facebook says that it intends to pass a key 500-shareholder mark this year, accord...

Twitter has 'no plans' to sell or go public
Twitter, which has fended off several buyers, intends to remain an independent company and is not considering going public at the moment, chief executive Dick Costolo said. "My sincere hope is for Twitter to be a successful independent company," Costolo said at a conference organized by technology blog AllThingsD.com on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "We've accomplished one percent of what we've set out to do and we have all this crazy potential," he said of the m...

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 doesnt care where Goldman gets its funds
The NYT is reporting that Goldman Sachs only made its $450 million investment in Facebook after its in-house Private Equity fund, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, passed on the deal. Many people — including the NYT — have been talking a lot in recent days about the “ancillary business” that Goldman is likely to get as a result of this investment, including fees from any future IPO and wealth-management fees for looking after Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune. There’s ...

Facebook or Facecrook? IPOs Are a Thing of the Past
This week the world discovered that Goldman Sachs and Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies are planning to invest $500 million in Facebook, a deal which values the company at $50 billion. As a part of the deal, Goldman also plans to raise $1.5 billion by peddling $2 million stakes in Facebook among its most wealthy clients.  With all the recent Chinese Internet IPOs (DangDang, Youku) it’s no surprise that major US players want to get Bullish on untapped American Internet companies (Fac...

Goldman's Facebook Voodoo
While delaying the Facebook IPO until 2012, former Goldman Sachs exec Nomi Prins explains how her old bank also pulled off the unthinkable: a worse deal than their infamous toxic Mortgages....

Probe may push Facebook to early stock offering
Stumble This! A US Probe into Goldman Sachs's massive investment in Facebook could drive the hugely popular social-networking website to go public earlier than it hoped for, analysts said. The investment, reported at 450 million dollars, has exposed the thin line between private and public markets and underscored companies' reluctance to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of shares that results in Oversight by Regulators. "Companies are doing everything they can do to avoid going public. F...

Social media: Is Facebook really worth $50 billion?
IN 2009 Rolling Stone described Goldman Sachs, an Investment Bank, as “a great vampire squid” that likes to stick its “blood funnel” into anything that can make it money. This week the squid inked yet another high-profile deal. Together with Digital Sky Technologies (DST), a Russian group, Goldman invested a total of $500m in Facebook, valuing the world’s most popular social network at a whopping $50 billion. The bank is also planning to set up a fund it will manage...