Facebook could file for its long-awaited initial public offering as early as Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
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Mark Zuckerberg
The social-networking company is expected to pick Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter for the IPO, the Journal said. The Wall Street bank has been the most popular choice among internet IPOs in recent years.
The company is currently looking at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, according to the report, which would be one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history.
The impending IPO — expected to raise $10 billion — is a prized trophy for investment banks, set up a fierce competition on Wall Street, particularly between front-runners Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs . Shares of both banksspiked in Friday afternoon trading on Facebook's news.
The IPO has also spurred competition for retail investors, wanting to own as many shares as possible.
“To the extent that there is any bubble in technology at all, it is really a bubble around Facebook in the sense that there is a huge amount of pent-up demand among retail investors for access to Facebook equity,” said Sean Parker, Napster co-founder, in an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forumin Davos.
The current winner in the race for Facebook equity, with nearly $500 million, is Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, head of investment group DST. Milner, who also own stake in Zynga , Twitter, and Groupon , called Facebook a "transformational" company that would continue to grow after going public, in an interview with CNBC on Friday.
Reuters contributed to this report.
