Source:
The GuardianFacebook might be forced by US regulators to take the social networking company public as new investors pile in
"It's a lot easier to go public than to be public," observed veteran technology investor Frank Quattrone last year. That insight might prove doubly prophetic for Facebook, which is under fresh scrutiny about when it might take – or be forced to take – the social networking company public following
a fresh $500m (£320m) round of investment led by Goldman Sachs that has valued Facebook at $50bn...Joined by the Russian tech investment firm Digital Sky, which put $50m into the deal, Goldman has structured it as a new investment product.
Clients can buy a chunk of Facebook equity by investing at least $2m, and have to agree not to sell shares until 2013 and not to trade in secondary stock markets.It is a deal that has prompted scrutiny of the rules on US initial public offerings. The securities and exchange commission (SEC) stipulates that firms with more than 499 shareholders must go public, though Facebook won an exemption from this ruling in November 2008 by saying most of its shareholders were staff.
Outside Facebook, though, nobody knows for sure how many investors it has.Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/04/sec-may-force-facebook-flotation
Goldman Sachs, everyone's favorite vampire squid, is inking the books for the sociopath-of-the-year and countless insider leeches. Again. Someone tell Timmeth. Oh wait, maybe a blind trust has just shelled out another $2m.