Facebook IPO

[MichaelB]

Interestingly enough the Fed recently disclosed one of the founders gave up his US citizenship in 2011 in order to minimize the exit tax on his 3.2 billion FB holdings.

That is a smart move on his part. He moved here as a child, went to private school and Harvard and somewhere along the line became a US citizen, was involved in a startup, got a share but not a role. He has no ties to the US and doesn't live here, so why stay?

 

[M Paquette]

That is a smart move on his part. He moved here as a child, went to private school and Harvard and somewhere along the line became a US citizen, was involved in a startup, got a share but not a role. He has no ties to the US and doesn't live here, so why stay?

There's an additional motive. Eduardo Saverin recently moved to Singapore, and with FATCA, it's really hard for a US citizen to set up banking and investment accounts there. Local accounts have the advantage of untaxed capital gains under Singapore law.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...naires-told-go-away-as-tax-evasion-rule-looms

“I don’t open U.S. accounts, period,” said Su Shan Tan, head of private banking at Singapore-based DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest lender, who described regulatory attitudes toward U.S. clients as “Draconian.”

 

[Dimsumkid]

Offering price is $26-35 they say.

.

Just got notification they amended the prospectus max offer price to $38. They expect the pricing range to be between $34 and $38 now.

 

[explanade]

Hmm, maybe the demand isn't that great.

 

[kcowan]

Yes let's raise the price to stimulate demand!

 

[Brat]

What is odd is that you want the price of the stock to go up after it goes public.

 

[EvrClrx311]

my guess is we'll see it swing wildly between $25-$40 on opening day... but by year end it'll settle in the $20-25 range...

if you're a gambler... this will be fun. Long term investors are risking a lot by putting anything more than "fun money" into FB

The price change up is FB insiders banking on people buying facebook stock just to own a piece of the iconic company, doesn't matter if its $30, $100 or $1,000 a share - they just want something on IPO day. They hope a sizable fraction of shares will end up in the hands of people who just wanted in on the action from the start, no matter the cost, and don't plan to sell anytime soon because its not an investment in their eyes... just a novelty

 

[Animorph]

But you only want it to go up 10% or so. You don't want to give away your shares by pricing them too low. GM did the same thing and it worked OK for them. Of course that didn't last long, but long enough to beat the 15 day Fidelity required IPO holding period.

 

[Running_Man]

If I had a chance to get shares of Facebook at the IPO price and had any speculative money at all, I would jump at the chance. While you can never know what will happen in a market like this the odds are I think it will be over $70 after the first day and I'd be willing to gamble some money on that myself

 

[Brat]

My daughter told me that FaceBook employees have been buying homes with FB shares as a part of the deal. Talk about a complex closing!

 

[clifp]

If I had a chance to get shares of Facebook at the IPO price and had any speculative money at all, I would jump at the chance. While you can never know what will happen in a market like this the odds are I think it will be over $70 after the first day and I'd be willing to gamble some money on that myself

I wouldn't want to buy it on the first day, but at the IPO I think it would be a worthwhile gamble. I'd say there is an equal chance of it being $70 at the end 30 days or $15.

They are only going to be selling a small piece of the company and there is a lot of interest in the company. They are valuing it at $~100 per user and there is certainly no reason that Facebook couldn't have 2 billion in the next 5 years.

Of course by conventional metrics revenues, P/E cash flow it is very expensive and todays new that GM wouldn't be advertising on Facebook is very bad news. But only if you assume that GM's marketing department knows what they are doing.

 

[almost there]

Government Motors has no idea what they are doing.
That's how they got where they are today. }

My order is in for 500 @ 25.00. Just for fun. Will I get it?
Who cares? LOL LOL

 

[kcowan]

My daughter told me that FaceBook employees have been buying homes with FB shares as a part of the deal. Talk about a complex closing!

That makes sense. RE is at all time lows. They can quickly convert their shares into something with intrinsic value. All they need to do is trade in their stock certificate:

 

[clifp]

That makes sense. RE is at all time lows. They can quickly convert their shares into something with intrinsic value. All they need to do is trade in their stock certificate:

That makes sense. Although I believe Silicon Valley real estate is doing very well and didn't get slammed to badly during the crisis. The house I sold in 99 is worth 70% more than when I sold it.

I figured out that dot com bubble was going to burst when my friend's 50 person B2B ecommerce company went public at at market cap that exceeded the value of all the real estate sold in Silicon Valley in the last year.

Even with a median house price of $2.3 million in Palo Alto, the Facebook valuation will be worth more than all of the real estate in Palo Alto plus several smaller cities combined.

 

[obgyn65]

I have never own a single share. Even if I was given some Facebook shares free, I still would not take them.... That sums it up for me.

My order is in for 500 @ 25.00. Just for fun. Will I get it?
Who cares? LOL LOL

 

[steelyman]

I think my life will be just the same the day after the Facebook IPO as the day before. That's sort of one of the goals I have now post-ER: no big swings one way or the other!

 

[kcowan]

Government Motors has no idea what they are doing.
That's how they got where they are today.

So you are betting against Buffett. Good for you! I think maybe he is getting senile.

IBM, GM! Where has my Oracle gone?

 

[EvrClrx311]

Government Motors has no idea what they are doing.
That's how they got where they are today. }

My order is in for 500 @ 25.00. Just for fun. Will I get it?
Who cares? LOL LOL

If you leave it open... I'm guessing you'll get it sometime next week. Or at least by the end of the month.

 

[SRyan]

Ipo @ $38

 

[mickeyd]

$16B in IPO stock sales tomorrow @ 9:30 ET or so. Many new millionaires in the SJ area. Got anything to sell them...house, car, gadget?

 

[Animorph]

I got 100sh of Facebook out of 1200sh requested from Fidelity. That was half of the requests for two accounts and nothing (so far) from the 1000sh request in my third account. Not sure how they decided that, but I'll have a little fun at least.

 

[EvrClrx311]

Crazy...

9:46 AM Facebook (FB) hasn't begun trading in the U.S. yet, but in Germany, bids of €58.20 ($74) are being placed, according to Bloomberg. That nearly amounts to a doubling from the company's $38 IPO price, and would translate into a market cap north of $200B

 

[Dimsumkid]

FB is now showing up as $40.13 in the US @ 11:41 EST.

 

[Animorph]

Looks like they priced it pretty well. Nice to see the original owners get the cash instead of the IPO buyers.

 

[Running_Man]

Well I went ahead and bought 500 hundred shares @38.50, we'll see how this goes, totally a short term speculation on my part but I really like the odds, the amount of negative press this has been getting just made me want to do this!