Facebook will go public on Friday, raising just over $16 billion in what will be the largest technology IPO on record. Facebook filed papers announcing a $5 billion initial public offering of stock, making it one of the biggest in recent history.
Facebook said it would price 421,233,615 shares at $38 apiece, raising just over $16.01 billion. The shares will begin selling on Friday under the symbol "FB",
The company launched in 2004 and became profitable five years after that. Last year, Facebook earned revenues of $3.7 billion - mainly from advertising.
It is expected that the stock offering will set Facebook´s overall value at $75 billion to $100 billion.
The stock will be split up between Facebook, which will sell 180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock, and the existing stockholders, which are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock. In addition, Facebook and the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 63,185,042 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. That could conceivably be worth another $2.4 billion.
Google, the second-largest tech IPO on record, raised $1.9 billion in its 2004 IPO.