Facebook’s IPO has been expected to be coming in the first half of the year, for quite some time. Rumors have pegged the IPO for somewhere between April and June. More recently, it’s been rumored to be coming in May.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook may file its IPO papers as early as next Wednesday, and is “close” to picking Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter. This is based on “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reports. The valuation is expected to be between $75 billion to $100 billion.
Neither Facebook or Morgan Stanley is talking.
Back in December, Zynga, which owes a great deal of its success to Facebook, launched its IPO at $1 billion in what was considered the biggest tech IPO since Google.
Facebook ought to be changing that soon. It’s expected to raise as much as $10 billion.
Meanwhile, Facebook is doing plenty to boost ad revenue.
According to recent research from Palo Alto Networks, Facebook accounted for 80% of social media traffic.
At over 800 million users, that means Facebook accounts for over 1 in 10 humans on earth.