Investing In Facebook May Not Be A Possibility

January 4th, 2011 - 6:57 pm ICT by GD  

By Ranjan Bhaduri
facebook50_wideJan 4, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The user base and asset of Facebook is growing with time. The popular social networking service has over 550 million users and it is worth $50 billion, as per the reports of a leading US daily. It is quite amazing since the worth of the company stood at 415 billion only three years back. This may make interested investors and individuals invest in it but as of now this is not possible. Its exceptional growth notwithstanding, Facebook continues to be a private company led by Mark Zuckerberg. Hence the Sec rules state that only wealthy individuals and a few large entities are eligible to invest in it. The same is applicable for other popular private etch companies like Zynga, LinkedIn and micro-blogging service Twitter.

However, a section of institutional investors seem to be interested in buying the stocks of these companies. The venture capitalists who invested earlier in such companies get shares in return. Apart from them the employees of the companies also get stocks as a part of their benefits. These activities have made SEC sit up and probe into the so called private trading. The interesting part is that a private company with over 500 investors is required to announce to the public its financial results. Both Goldman Sachs and Facebook are attempting to bypass this law.

The SEC is yet to decide whether it is okay with the way Goldman Sachs is dealing with its investment in Facebook. However, even if Facebook is made to declare its financial result the public, it still may choose not to sell shares to the mass.

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Technology Industry News |

Subscribe