Facebook to Hold Additional IPO Briefing with Analysts in April: Sources
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Facebook plans to hold an additional briefing for analysts and bankers in April, at which time in-depth financial information may be discussed, according to people familiar with the matter.
A meeting held Monday March 19 at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters and led by two top executives featured no talk of future financials, these people said.
Leading the presentation were chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief financial officer David Ebersman, who has been spearheading the multi-year process of taking Facebook public. Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, did not attend.
“For the purposes of the IPO, it’s fair to think of Mark Zuckerberg as a chairman, not a hands-on CEO”, one person familiar with the meeting said.
Holding such discussions before an IPO is a commonplace practice that often touches on forward-looking information for the purposes of allowing sell-side analysts to build research models.
Because attendees are required to sign non-disclosure agreements before entering these meetings, material information could be exempt from a requirement to be disclosed in the S-1 documents as well. However, given the sensitivity of such information where the Facebook deal is concerned, the company would likely to choose to broaden its disclosure if anything “material” were in the cards.
Facebook and its representatives declined to comment.
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