Mark Zuckerberg, everyone’s favorite, cuddly billionaire, likely just exercised the option to purchase 120 million shares of Facebook. At 6 cents per share.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the shares, once worth $7.2 million, priced at current secondary market rates, are worth roughly $4.8 billion. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a mountain of cash. News of the transaction came out via a Federal Trade Commission announcement that declared a massive transaction between Zuck, and Facebook.
As you well know, Facebook is shooting towards an initial public offering of its stock on the open market, under the symbol ‘FB.’ The company is looking to raise around $5 billion in that sale. That behemoth IPO is a long time coming for the social giant, a firm that has proven that its ad platform can generate massive quantities of cash.
Recently, TNW looked at two other technology IPOs, predicting how the market sits, and how it will impact Facebook’s own floating:
For both tech IPOs to post such dramatic results begs the ridiculous, unanswerable question: is tech back? Don’t get bogged down in that. What these two offerings state, and I think plainly, is that technology companies that behave will find a place in the market for their stock.
This bodes very well for Facebook, a company that is looking to raise a stunning $5 billion. The company intends on commanding a very rich valuation, which has had some on edge; can Facebook pull it off? It appears that it is extremely likely. If investors are paying sufficient attention to tech that Millennial Media and CafePress can have very successful debuts, it is unlikely that Facebook will have too much trouble with its float.
When Facebook does finally drop onto the market, it’s going to be a global event. Get ready. We almost want to reread its S-1, but will hold off until we get just a bit closer to the big day.
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