It seems like everyday marks a new low for the folks over at Facebook. Today, stock prices slipped below the $26 mark to $25.75. Considering shares started out at $38, I would say the IPO has lost almost all of its momentum. But, perhaps it speaks to the climate on Wall Street overall.
Groupon also experienced record low stock prices earlier this week. Their shares slipped below $10 just as the lockup period from their IPO expired. Shareholders seemed eager to dump their stake in the company as their quarterly performance almost always disappoints and the value of the shares has never even approximated the price most investors paid during the IPO. In fact, their market capitalization just sunk below the $6 billion Google offered them a couple years ago to buy them out.
Of course there’s more to Facebook’s bad news than just falling stock prices. The social media platform and its underwriters are facing a huge onslaught of lawsuits stemming from a number of issues surrounding their IPO. The first, and most prominent of those issues being a revised revenue forecast which conveniently only found its way into big investor’s hands despite being released almost ten days before the IPO.
Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and the biggest underwriters in the IPO like Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs all face lawsuits brought forth by investors in California, New York, Massachusetts, and the list seems to grow larger everyday. I dare say it’s trendy to sue Facebook these days.
Aside from lawsuits, Facebook’s IPO has also been the launching point for several investigations. Interested parties include Wall Street Regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress. For various reasons, they are all taking a closer look at Facebook and their actions leading up to the IPO.
So Facebook shares are not doing good, and it sounds like the executives aren’t doing much better. While the networking site is just as popular as ever, we have to wonder if this IPO nonsense is just the first step into major decline for the company. We’ll keep you posted as new information comes in about Facebook shares, Wall Street trading, new IPO lawsuits and/or big bank scandals.