Facebook now looks as if it will hold its much-anticipated IPO next Friday, May 18. The expectation is that the shares will sell for somewhere between $28 and $35, which would mean the company would take in somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion. In all likelihood, it will be the biggest IPO in American history.
The existing leader in that category provides a bit of a cautionary tale for Facebook. In 2000, AT&T spun off a subsidiary to create a new company, AT&T Wireless, in an IPO that raised $10.6 billion, which is the number Facebook is aiming to beat. But its share price slid from $29.50 at the initial offering all the way down under $10 within three years, before merging with Cingular in 2004, in a deal that valued AT$T Wireless at $15 a share.
Of course, that was a very different time; AT&T Wireless launched just as the high-tech boom was ending, and rode that trend downward. Facebook is hoping to be more like Google, which launched an IPO in 2004 that raised "just" $1.67 billion, but has been solid ever since.
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