Facebook and its stakeholders to sell shares

Facebook Inc. officially announced that the company and its stakeholders are going to sell shares estimated to 3.85 billion dollars in its first stock offering since the company went public last year. In a statement, made yesterday, the company said that 70 million shares were priced at 55.05 dollars each. Facebook will offer about 27 million shares, with an additional 41.35 million offered by the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Mark Zuckerberg is expected to use most of the money in oder to pay taxes. 1.65 million shares are sold by one of the Facebooks board members – Mark Andereessen.

The Chief Executive Officer of Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg said he is going to separately donate 18 million shares on December the 31st. As already reported by Bloomberg, a person familiar with the matter, who specifically asked not to be named because the information is private, said that the shares, estimated to 992 million dollars will be received by the Silicon Valley Community Founation.

This move coincides with the inclusion of Facebook in Standard & Poors 500 Index. Standard & Poor had made an official announcement saying that it plans to include Facebooks Class A common stock in its 500 Index at the close of trading on December the 20th. The event is considered to accelerate the demand coming from index funds and other institutions. The company explained it will use the profits from the sale for working capital and other corporate purposes.

Facebooks spokeswoman Vanessa Chan refused to comment the situation. The spokeswoman of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation Sue McAllister did not respond to a request to comment the rumours.

The charity donation plus his share sale constitute more than 10% of the CEOs Facebook holdings. Mark Zuckerberg is known to sold or gifted about 20% of his Facebook stake along with a stock sale and a charity contribution made last year.

According to CNN Money, the current share price of Facebook Inc. is 0.13% up, and its one-year return rate is 107.06% up. The 39 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Facebook Inc. have a median target of 60.00, with a high estimate of 72.50 and a low estimate of 42.00. The median estimate represents a +8.85% increase from the last price of 55.12.