Things you need to know about the Facebook IPO

Last Friday Facebook went to the stock exchange in a big way. Facebook’s initial public offering (IPO) valued the social network at a whopping $104bn (£66bn) and we learned that it was making a young dorm-room tinkerer very rich indeed, but what have we learned since then? The first thing we learn is that Facebook is no longer worth £66bn.

That’s not to say that Facebook’s stock launched on Friday and then fell out of the sky like a burnt out firework. In fact its shares went up as high as $45 having kicked off at $38, and then fell to $33.28. Since the shares went on sale they have fallen in value by around 10 to 12 per cent on Monday, at time of writing.

It isn’t a great start for an IPO, but then some people were worried about its prospects before the launch, with some expressing concerns about the maturity of the firm’s founder. Which brings us to… post IPO, Zuckerberg got married

While most of us would spend the night after making so much money throwing some of it around on a bed, Mark Zuckerberg was ironing a shirt and getting ready for his wedding.

He married the day after the IPO made him much much richer, and although it was probably a nice affair, we can’t help but think that buying a wedding present for a billionaire twenty-something must be something of a nightmare.

Why the wait? Well, maybe his bride wanted to wait to see how the IPO went. If so, perhaps she should have waited until Monday.

Speaking of money, much of the talk last week was about how much cash the IPO would make Bono, a man who makes wearing sunglasses an insult to everyone watching.

Bono, or at least a company that he is part of, owns a stake in Facebook, which lead to suggestions that the singing moaner would make more cash out of people’s data then he ever did out of music.

Since that blew the top off a lot of people’s heads Bono has commented on those suggestions, saying that actually it’s not true at all.

While it was suggested that he would make $1.5bn from the sales, in fact he says, he’s hardly going to make anything at all.

“Contrary to reports, I’m not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle,” he told MSNBC. “We invest people’s money in pension funds. we do get paid and that is a good thing… I’m blessed, but you know, I felt rich when i was 20 years old and my wife was paying my bills. you know, just being in a band, i’ve always felt like this. i mean, being so blessed.”

While this talk was going on, the IPO was actually happening. However, even that did not go smoothly. According to Reuters problems at Nasdaq have lead to the firm telling traders that the system will get its face wiped and its problems cleared away before the next big launch. Reuters is slight on details. We have asked Nasdaq for more information.

This talk about more information brings up back to the wedding. That event was a private affair, and none of the hundreds of millions of Facebook users were invited.

And here we’d heard that Facebook is all about sharing.

via The Inquirer

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