Facebook could begin pitching its stock to investors on Monday of next week, according to unnamed sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, in what is called a "roadshow." If all goes well, Facebook's IPO could take place as early as May 18.
According to The Wall Street Journal's sources, Mark Zuckerberg will make some appearance on the roadshow, but he will not attend every meeting. The majority of the roadshow meetings will be handled by other top Facebook executives, like Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman.
Facebook stated that it intended to raise at least $5 billion when it originally filed for IPO on February 1, though the company could possibly raise as much as $10 billion, which would value the company at around $100 billion. Final pricing for the deal is to be set the day before the IPO, and while the rumored planned date is May 18, the anonymous sources said that events could be pushed back a day or two depending on circumstances.
Sean Hollister of The Verge points out several interesting data points that have come to light since the company began the process of going public: There are 900 million active users on Facebook, 12% of the company's revenue comes from Zynga, there are more than 100 petabytes of photos and videos stored on the site, and Zuckerberg owns 28.4% of the company as well as a majority of voting stock.
