After much speculation and rumors, Facebook has finally filed for a $5 billion IPO. Facebook is offering 5 p.c of its shares to the public which essentially puts the valuation of the company at $100 billion.
“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,”said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook in a letter to investors.
Facebook was launched by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004 and was initially intended only for Harvard students. It has later opened its doors to the public and has grown to become the online social networking giant that we know now with over 800 million active users on Facebook.
Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds 28.2 p.c of the $100 billion company and is now worth more than $28 billion. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz holds 7.6 p.c of the shares.
Facebook has reported revenue of $3.7 billion and a profit of $1 billion for the year 2011. Facebook mainly earns its revenue through the targeted ads it serves to its users. Ad revenues account for 85 p.c of the total revenues at Facebook and rest 15 p.c is from payments for virtual goods bought on the site. Zynga, the online social gaming giant alone accounts for a whopping 12 p.c of the total revenues at Facebook.