25 year-old Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has declared that the company will eventually launch an initial public offering (IPO) but added “we are definitely in no rush” to do so. There has been a lot of speculation recently that the social-networking site, which is one of the Internet’s most popular destinations with some 400 million users, will go public.
However, as Mr. Zuckerberg stated last year as well, an IPO is not really the end goal for this particular start-up. “We view that as one milestone along the way and as such it is not something that we are really rushing towards, it is something that we will do when we are ready for it, and that we do not see happening on the immediate horizon.”
The current value of Facebook has been estimated at $11.5 billion, but it is thought that, if it goes public, the company could be worth more than Google was when the search engine company went public some 6 years ago. Google was valued at $23 billion when it went public and rose to $27 billion after the first day of trading. It has been speculated that Facebook could have a market capitalisation of $35-40 billion upon the launch of an IPO.
The recent speculations about an IPO and the possibility of a huge pay-off have, of course, fuelled interest from investors in acquiring shares in Facebook. In November last year, the company passed measures to ensure voting control by existing shareholders. Large investments that have been made in the company include $240 million by Microsoft in 2007 and $200 million by Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies in May last year. However, these investors hold very small stakes in the company and do not control the Board.
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