New York - Facebook on Thursday announced a price of $38 per share for its record-setting initial public offering, which gives the leading social network a market value of $104-billion.
The shares will begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq, the company said in a statement.
Facebook said 421-million shares of its common stock will be sold to the public at a price of $38 per share. Facebook is offering 180-million and holders of previous shares are selling 241-million.
A so-called over-allotment of up to 63-million shares will be made available to the underwriters, a consortium including Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others.
That will mean one of the biggest IPOs for a US firm, raising between $16-billion and $18.4-billion.
Under the share plan, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg will hold 55.8 percent of the voting power, down slightly from an estimated 57.3 percent. The 28-year-old controls the firm through a dual class stock structure and certain shares that give him a “proxy” for voting.
The net proceeds to the company were estimated at $6.4-billion. - AFP