The most anticipated historic IPO of the year is almost here. Facebook plans to file papers with the US SEC on Wednesday to begin the process of becoming a publicly listed company, reports suggested. According to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, the world’s largest social network is being valued at around $75 and $100 billion.
The New York Times and CNBC have reported their own sources in articles posted late Tuesday, saying that the filing will land Wednesday. Facebook is seeking to raise up to $5 billion in its offering, they added.
At a $100 billion valuation, Facebook would be worth about the same as McDonald’s Corp. and nearly half of Google.
“The minute the IPO is filed, there will be pandemonium,” said IPO Boutique’s Scott Sweet, who says he has never seen anything quite like the pent-up demand for Facebook shares.
Anticipation of the biggest IPO ever for an Internet company has real estate agents seeing a note of urgency in the local market, Wall Street money managers moving in for a piece of the action, and even state budget analysts factoring in a “Facebook effect” that could top $1 billion.
Top Historic Internet IPOs
On top of the list for historic IPOs is the San Francisco based credit card company, Visa, at $17.9 billion in March of 2008.
Social gaming company Zynga raised $1 billion in its IPO in December, 2011, the biggest web-related IPO since Google, according to the Associated Press.
LinkedIn went public in May of 2011 and raised $352.8 million. In 2004, Google raised $1.7 billion.
Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the US, went public with $3.7 billion IPO in 1999.
