Facebook plans to raise up to $12 billion in mega IPO

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc aims to raise about $10.6 billion in Silicon Valley’s largest IPO, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Inc and granting the world’s largest social network a market value close to Amazon.com’s.

The eight-year-old social network that began as Mark Zuckerberg‘s Harvard dorm room project indicated an initial public offering price range of between $28 and $35 a share on Thursday, yielding a valuation of $77 billion to $96 billion.

The social networking phenomenon stands to raise as much as $12 billion at the upper end of that range. But if an over-allotment or “greenshoe” option is triggered, the company could sweep up a maximum of $13.6 billion, according to a Thursday prospectus.

The indicative price range can be adjusted depending on Wall Street’s response. Investors are expected to flock to the highly anticipated IPO, though some have voiced concerns about the social network‘s longer-term growth.

Last week, Facebook 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 just as it prepares to go public. Its stock should begin trading in about a week or two.

“People are going to be very comfortable with this valuation,” said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares worth roughly $200 million. The firm is not selling in the IPO.

“A price range of $28 to $35 will be a relief to some people who are concerned that they may try to take the highest possible price because of high demand.

“The amount being raised is noteworthy. Selling stockholders are raising about $5 billion in the IPO, which is a lot,” Schwerin said.

Facebook executives are due to hit the road on Monday, presenting their investment case to audiences. They will start in New York, go to other major cities such as Chicago and Boston, and end up on Facebook’s home turf in Menlo Park, California, according to a schedule obtained by Reuters.

Zuckerberg is expected to participate in the two-week roadshow, a source has said, though Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Finance Chief David Ebersman will lead the briefings.

TANTALIZING WALL STREET

Facebook, which plans to list its stock on the Nasdaq under the ticker “FB”, has long tantalized investors with the prospect of a mega IPO.

Its capital-raising target far outstrips big Internet IPOs that came before it. Google raised just shy of $2 billion in 2004, while last year Groupon tapped investors for $700 million and Zynga raked in $1 billion.

At the maximum end of the range, Facebook’s value would be close to $100 billion. That would rival Amazon.com’s and Cisco Systems Inc’s market values of just over $100 billion, while surpassing the combined market value of older technology companies Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc.

In its prospectus, Facebook said the “lock-up” period, during which employees cannot sell shares after the IPO, would range from 151 days to 181 days.

Some investors think Facebook, which touts 845 million users worldwide, is setting itself a fairly conservative target.

“The price range may be tactical. They will likely walk the range up,” Schwerin argued.

(Writing By Edwin Chan, additional reporting by Poornima Gupta, Gerry Shih and Sarah McBride in San Francisco and Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Bernadette Baum and Matthew Lewis)

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