Tick-Tock: Facebook $100B IPO To Pop?

Facebook is on a timeline. Or so many industry watchers believe after it stopped trading shares suddenly last week – meaning a public floatation is in the offing.

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Facebook Timeline app

Mark Zuckerberg wants to sell 10% worth of shares in the company, worth $10bn as reports suggest, which could mean Facie could soon be valued at $100 billion in total – meaning every user (and there’s 800 million of ’em) is valued at $125. Wow.

The rumour mill is in overdrive of an imminent Initial Public Offering (IPO) after Fenwick & West, Facebook’s law firm, stopped investors from trading shares, last week, indicating a move towards a flotation may have begun.

The Wall Street Journal also believe the public flotation will happen this May.

And this comes as Facebook is on another timeline – its own.

800 million Facebookers have just under seven days to get their account’s Timeline in order before it goes public (but not in the trading floor sense, you understand).

And even though the company itself won’t go public before its Timeline does, it looks as if the big pop is just weeks away.

Although Zuckerberg has previously voiced caution about becoming a public traded company rather the private entity it is at present, with just over 500 investors to please.

However the move will allow it go head to head with rivals Google, who have pulled out all the stops with its answer to Facebook, Google+, analysts believe.

But it’s not like Facebook, who are said to have made $1bn profit last year (this figure is unknown as the social network is not required by law to release figures), need the cash to compete (they’ve done a pretty good job of that already, sans a public listing).

“The company doesn’t need to raise cash for its business: it’s not like they are building factories,”  one analyst told The Guardian.

“This is about paying off investors.”

However, Zuckerberg himself has said the flotation was about paying back employees, who will be among the richest in Silicon Valley, once Facebook goes pop.

And one wonders if the network has acquisitions in its sights, although Zuckerberg and Co appear pretty self contained at the moment.

Time awaits.