NEW YORK: Facebook is poised to find out just how much Wall Street likes the world's number one social network.
Facebook is expected to file paperwork towards a stock market launch this week, possibly as early as Wednesday, seeking to raise up to $10 billion on the advertising riches flowing from the personal data of its 800 million users.
The flotation would be the largest ever by a technology company, eclipsing the $1.9 billion raised by Internet search giant Google when it went public in 2004 at a valuation of $23 billion.
The Wall Street Journal broke the news of Facebook's impending initial public offering (IPO) last week, saying it planned to raise $10 billion, which would value the firm at between $75 billion and $100 billion.
The $10 billion target had been halved to a more conservative $5 billion in reports emerging late Tuesday in The New York Times and International Financing Review.
The publications stressed, however, that $5 billion was only a preliminary fund-raising target and could always be raised after gauging investor interest in the Palo Alto, California-based company.
With 800 million members and more joining daily since its launch in 2004, Facebook is the leading social network in all but seven countries, notably Russia, where local rivals are preferred, and China, where it is banned.
The initial IPO filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission was not expected to specify how many shares were being offered or their list price.
It would also not put a valuation on the company nor identify which exchange Facebook shares would be traded on -- the Nasdaq stock market or the New York Stock Exchange.
But it would provide the first glimpse ever of the financial details of the globally popular service launched by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg eight years ago from his Harvard University dormitory room.
According to eMarketer, Facebook's total revenue was $4.27 billion last year, mostly from online advertising, up from $2 billion in 2010.
The filing should also reveal the holdings of shareholders in Facebook, company strategy and risk factors going forward such as recurring privacy complaints that have bedeviled the company over the years.
Zuckerberg, whose network has been estimated at $17.5 billion by Forbes magazine, is believed to be the largest individual shareholder in Facebook with 24 percent.
Facebook shares would not begin trading until the IPO process is finalized, probably not before May, and the filing may not reveal the ticker symbol Facebook plans to use on Wall Street.
With a deal size of $10 billion, Facebook would slip into sixth place on the list of largest US IPOs between AT&T Wireless Group ($10.62 billion) and Kraft Foods ($8.68 billion), according to Renaissance Capital.
A market capitalization of $100 billion would put Facebook on a par with McDonald's ($101 billion), well ahead of Boeing ($55 billion) but behind Apple ($426 billion) and Google ($189 billion).
A Facebook IPO would be "the biggest financial event in the tech industry for 2012," Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said, and would eclipse those of several other Internet companies that went public in 2011.
Career-oriented social network LinkedIn was undervalued while online daily deals site Groupon and social games titan Zynga have both been trading at or below their list price.
Morgan Stanley is expected to be the lead bank for the IPO and International Financing Review said Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan would also play a role.
LONDON: Convicted fast bowler Muhammad Amir has been released from the young offenders institute in Weymouth, two days before on completion of half of the jail term he was awarded by the Southwark Crown Court here.
Amir was serving a six-month sentence for spot-fixing after the 19-year-old.
Amir was found guilty in the scandal that shook the cricketing world in May 2010. Amir, Salman Butt and Muhammad Asif had taken bribes from bookie Mazhar Majeed.
Undercover reporter Mazhar Majeed from now defunct British publication News Of The World secretly videotaped Majeed during transaction that played a key role in securing the conviction. Amir was the first and the only of the three players who changed his defence to a guilty plea and was sentenced for only 6 months.
Amir’s legal team had initially confirmed that he will be released on February 9 and that he will complete part of his remaining sentence on licence at a London address.
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that Muhammad Amir was released this morning. "Amir was released today in the morning," said a spokesperson speaking to The News, without giving any further details.
It is believed that Amir will stay in London for about 2-3 weeks and then he will leave for Pakistan. He has visa to stay in the UK till the end of March.
A source confirmed that a probation officer from the Prison Services accompanied Amir to the guarantee address where he will be staying to ensure that being a young offender he has all the requirements at the address.
LONDON: Italian luxury shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo is close to agreeing a deal to pay a record UK rent at its Bond Street store that will break the 1,000 pounds ($1,576) per square foot mark for the first time, a source familiar with the deal told Reuters.
The deal would break the previous record of 965 pounds per square foot for the valuable Zone A front section of a store set by jeweler Piaget on the same glitzy central London shopping strip in December 2009.
Under the deal between landlord NFU Mutual pension fund and Ferragamo, the retailer will extend its lease and increase its rent from 600 pounds to 1059 pounds per square foot at 24 Old Bond Street as part of a plan to expand its retail space, the source said.
Bond Street rents far exceed other central London shopping streets. Rents on the second most expensive strip of Oxford Street are on average 200 pounds per square foot lower and Marylebone High Street peaks at about 225 pounds.
NFU declined to comment. Ferragamo was not immediately available to comment.
Fierce competition for space on Bond Street, the UK's most expensive shopping stretch and the second priciest in Europe behind Paris' Avenue des Champs Elysées, has driven up rents and spurred deep-pocketed retailers to buy stores in order to guarantee ownership of top sites.
Unlike mid-market retailers, luxury brands have bounced back strongly from the depths of the 2008 downturn, helped by strong demand from emerging markets such as China and Russia.
The acute space shortage on the half mile stretch combined with strong demand from global brands that see a Bond Street presence as essential to European expansion plans, may boost rents to 1,500 pounds by 2013, consultancy Cushman & Wakefield said. (Reuters
CAIRO: Riots after a football match on Wednesday in Egypt's Port Said left 74 people dead, medics said.
Doctors in four hospitals told AFP that the death toll had reached 74, as ambulances continued to ferry in the injured from the stadium.
Some of the deaths were the result of stab wounds, the doctors said.
A security official said the violence erupted as soon as the referee blew the final whistle in the match between Al-Ahly and Al-Masri clubs.
Fans of Al-Masri, which beat Al-Ahly 3-0, invaded the pitch and began to throw rocks, bottles and fireworks at the Al-Ahly fans.
Meanwhile in the capital, a fire broke out at Cairo Stadium during the first half of a match between Zamalek and Ismaili clubs, prompting officials to cancel the match.
Emergency services have managed to control the blaze, a security official said.
LOS ANGELES: Silent movie "The Artist" was given yet another Hollywood award Tuesday - though this one not from the Oscars or Golden Globes organizers, but from city fathers in Tinseltown itself.
The cast and crew of the French-directed movie received the "Made in Hollywood" honor from the Los Angeles City Council, in the form of local councilman Tom LaBonge.
"Thank you for 'The Artist,' you made the picture in our town. Your director is a very special director, we salute him today," said LaBonge, handing over the first "Made in Hollywood Award."
The black-and-white film, a tribute to the silent movie era, has won a string of awards and nominations over the last month or two, and is nominated in 10 categories for the Oscars on February 26.
Director Michel Hazanavicius said he was "touched" by the municipal Hollywood award. (AFP)
GENEVA: The World Trade Organization has approved a European Union waiver on duties for 75 products from Pakistan, a scheme intended to boost textile exports to help Pakistan recover from massive floods in 2010, a diplomat who was present at a meeting of the WTO's council for trade in goods said on Wednesday.
Other textile exporters, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh, had opposed the plan but dropped their objections after the EU amended the scheme to use tariff rate quotas on 20 products rather than full liberalisation.
The waiver will apply from Jan 1, 2012, until Dec 31, 2013, but first needs to be rubber-stamped by the WTO's General Council. (Reuters
KABUL: The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government in Saudi Arabia.
"There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future," the Taliban said on their website. (AFP)
