Mark Zuckerberg Rings NASDAQ Bell; Facebook Third Largest IPO Opening in History

[dgstorm]

The big news of the day is now officially out. Facebook's IPO was launched and priced out at $38, with a valuation set at $104 billion. Mark Zuckerberg himself rang the NASDAQ bell to start the trading day off with the big announcement. But, of course, he and the rest of his team at Facebook couldn't just do it the old fashioned way. They are code-junkies and hackers, after-all. So, they did things a little differently. One was pretty simple. Without a word, he rang the bell remotely from his company's headquarters (normally new IPO's will go to New York to ring it in person, although not always, so he was not the first to do this). Second, and this it where things get more interesting... beforehand, his team of engineers at the HQ found a way to hack the remote NASDAQ button, so that at the exact moment he hit the button to ring the bell, it would post the story to his Facebook timeline to let his friends and subscribers know. Here's a quote from the TechCrunch article with a few details,

During lunch, some us started talking about how cool it would be if the second Mark rang the bell, a story would post to his timeline to let his friends and subscribers know.

I was so excited about this idea that when I got back to my desk, I posted on Facebook: “We should totally hack the button so it pushes an open graph action, “Mark Rang the NASDAQ bell”.

The first person to comment? Zuck: “It would be epic if you pulled that off.”

I got to work that night.

The hack was successful. The IPO went off without a hitch, breaking several records. And the rest, as they say, is history...

Here's the full official press release for the IPO:

Facebook Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 421,233,615 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $38 per share. The shares are expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on May 18, 2012, under the symbol “FB.” Facebook is offering 180,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and selling stockholders are offering 241,233,615 shares of Class A common stock. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on May 22, 2012, subject to customary closing conditions.

In addition, Facebook and the selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 63,185,042 additional shares of Class A common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman, Sachs & Co., BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Allen & Company LLC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities are serving as book runners for the offering. RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities are serving as active co-managers.

The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. Copies of the prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 718 1649; e-mail: prospectus(at)morganstanley.com); J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, (Tel: +1 866 803 9204); or Goldman, Sachs & Co., 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, Attention: Prospectus Department (Tel: +1 866 471 2526, e-mail: prospectus-ny(at)ny.email.gs.com).

A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with, and declared effective by, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

 

[akhenax]

Get that paper Mark. Now if I only had 10 Grand lying around, I would by a few hundred stocks and just wait...to be rich B!@#

 

[Shadez]

Ok so I went to that Ancestry site, and no luck, not related to any Zuckerbergs... oh well ..back to work

 

[MissionImprobable]

 

[Immolate]

The IPO did not go off without a hitch. It was delayed due to technical difficulties. Also, the stock closed at the same $38 price that it opened for, which means zero pop for the investors. That doesn't mean it won't perform later on, but I'd say the IPO was a big disappointment.

 

[MissionImprobable]

Sorry, couldn't help it =p

 

[woodsie]

The IPO did not go off without a hitch. It was delayed due to technical difficulties. Also, the stock closed at the same $38 price that it opened for, which means zero pop for the investors. That doesn't mean it won't perform later on, but I'd say the IPO was a big disappointment.

I honestly don't know what people were expecting. The offer price of $38 per share gave the company a value of $104 Billion on day 1. That puts Facebook in the same ballpark as IBM, Google, Microsoft, and ExxonMobil...which is absolutely rediculous at this stage and the reason there was just about zero upside potential.

Any idiot jumping on this turkey either knew that fact or was willfully ignorant of it. For those of us who were there as investors for the late 90's dotcom bubble this is no surprise.

Facebook might (big might) be able to monetize their business model without alienating their userbase and eventually be worthy of a 12 digit valuation in the future but it is far from a foregone conclusion.

 

[Narsil]

It's currently at $33.20 per share...

...down almost 13%

The only people who made money off of this steaming "investment" were Zuckerburg and his cronies. I'm glad I let that IPO slip by.

I do wish, however, that I'd had some money to invest at Google's IPO.

 

[Shadez]

Actually Zuckerberg lost $2 bill .. but still has 17 Billion.

 

[Skull One]

Zuckerberg's loss is on paper only. Until he actually sells some of his remaining stock there is now realized gains or losses at this time. Hopefully his CPA knows his stuff and properly advise Zuckerberg on how much stock to sell to offset any realized gains from the investors and IPO backers so he takes a net zero tax hit this year.