Facebook floats on the stock market to raise over £3bn

Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, has confirmed plans to float on the stock market, potentially causing the biggest sale of shares ever seen by a US company.

Facebook Inc. has filed an initial public offering yesterday, an action that is set to raise approximately £3.16bn – about half the amount that analysts were expecting.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg currently owns about 28% of the company and controls 50% of the voting rights.

It is impossible to predict at what amount Facebook will actually be valued, but, with 845 million monthly users, reports estimate that the company could be worth around $100bn – about the same as Amazon and McDonald’s.

In a letter, Mr Zuckerberg explained why the company was moving in this new direction:

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.

“We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits.

“We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.”

Tom Chapman