Facebook’s Final Private Trade Values Company at $109 Billion
Facebook’s highly-anticipated final private market transaction has priced on SecondMarket at $43.50 (a record for the private market exchange), according to people familiar with the trade. That final trade values Facebook at roughly $109 billion.
The transaction, the last of its kind on the secondary markets due to a private market freeze on Facebook shares, will likely be an important psychological level for prospective investors and bankers as the company eyes a price range ahead of its May offering.
“I think it’s a data point that they will take under consideration,” says Lou Kerner, a private market analysts and founder of the Social Internet Fund. “A hundred billion dollar IPO at [around] 40 dollars a share – those are nice round numbers that will leave a little upside for folks who get in at IPO.”
While the size of the final trade was not immediately known, industry experts expected the volume to attract ample interest – in the range of hundreds of thousands of shares.
Last week, SecondMarket’s main rival Sharespost conducted its final Facebook auction, setting a price of $44.10 for 150,000 units – implying a valuation of roughly $103 billion, according to Sharespost share count estimates.
A representative at SecondMarket declined to comment.
Facebook has filed for an IPO of $5 billion, but is expected to raise as much as $10 billion. The deal is being led by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan , Goldman Sachs, Bank of America , Barclays and Allen & Company. A total of 31 banks are advising on the deal.
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