Robust Demand Prompts Facebook to Hike IPO Price Range
Thanks to strong demand from bullish investors, Facebook hiked its initial public offering price range Tuesday morning, putting the social network on track for a valuation of up to $104 billion.
The move underscores the frenzy over the world’s largest social network, which is set to go public later this week in a highly-anticipated and record-shattering offering that will likely make it Silicon Valley’s largest IPO.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange, Facebook raised its IPO range to $34 to $38 a share, up from $28 to $35 previously. The company is maintaining its expected IPO size of about 337.4 million shares.
The more bullish price range would translate to a market capitalization of $93 billion to $104 billion. If it went public at those valuations Facebook would be close to Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) $100 billion market cap and Cisco System’s (NASDAQ:CSCO) $90 billion.
The midpoint of Facebook’s new range, $36, would translate to raising in a massive haul of $12.1 billion, making the social network the largest global Internet IPO ever and trumping the $2 billion haul raked in by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) in 2004.
Last year daily deals leader Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) and online game maker Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) raised $700 million and $1 billion, respectively.
Facebook’s ability to raise its range suggests that large investors haven’t been concerned by CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s somewhat limited role during the IPO road show nor recent skepticism about the company’s evolving advertising model.
Also in the SEC filing, Facebook said its Class A common stock has been approved for listing on Nasdaq OMX Group’s (NASDAQ:NDAQ) Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “FB.” Nasdaq beat out archrival NYSE Euronext’s (NYSE:NYX) New York Stock Exchange for the coveted listing.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) are the investment banks leading the Facebook IPO.