Facebook IPO watch: Sources said on Wednesday that Facebook is currently preparing to formally carry out its IPO (initial public offering) in May this year.
According to the sources, Facebook has terminated the company’s shares trading in the stock market for the U.S. non-listed companies this week, in order to determine the number of shareholders. Read more about Facebook terminates the stock trading in secondary market.
Facebook filed the listing documents with the U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in early February this year and proposed to raise funds of $5 billion. The highest valuation on the 8-years old compnay once reached as high as $105 million. Read more about the valuation on Facebook.
The Facebook IPO will be the largest Internet company IPO in the U.S. stock market history. So far, the number of the Facebook’s users around the world has reached 845 million. Facebook posted a net profit of $1 billion on revenue of $3.71 billion in 2011.
The sources said the company is still discussing with the U.S. SEC over the Facebook IPO issues, and is expected to submit one more amended prospectus to SEC. Facebook submitted the latest F-s1 amend documents on Tuesday.
But the souces also warned that it is still not clear which day Facebook will select to carry out its IPO and the final listing date may be changed. The ultimate Facebook IPO date depends largely on the SEC instead of Facebook itself. Facebook said in the prospectus that the trading anmount of its shares in the stock market for non-listed companies significantly increased, promoting the valuation on the company to reach approximately $105 billion.