Early Facebook investors to sell bigger stakes
FACEBOOK yesterday increased the number of shares on sale by a quarter, setting itself up for a possible $18.4bn (£11.6bn) flotation tomorrow.
The social media behemoth added a further 96.4m shares to its offering, bringing the total number on sale to 484.4m,
At the higher end of the $34 to $38 price range, the flotation could raise $18.4bn.
Several of the website’s early investors have decided to cash in on the overwhelming demand for Facebook shares, which led several brokers to close their books early.
Goldman Sachs, which invested $450m in Facebook just last January, has more than doubled the number of shares it is selling from 13.2m to 28.7m. At the mid-range price of $36 per share, Goldman Sachs, which will also rake in the cash from co-underwriting the IPO, would pocket $1bn from the sale.
Peter Thiel, one of the social network’s earliest investors, will cut his 2.5 per cent stake to less than one per cent by selling 16.8m shares, up from the previous allotment of 7.7m.
DST Global, the internet investment firm owned by Russian tycoon Yuri Milner, will now offload a quarter of its stake – 45.7m shares up from 26.3m – while hedge fund Tiger Global has increased its offering sevenfold to 23.4m shares.
The new structure of the flotation slightly cuts Mark Zuckerberg’s voting control from 57.3 per cent to 55.8 per cent.
Facebook is set to unveil its IPO pricing today ahead of its Nasdaq debut tomorrow, when the share price is expected to balloon.