Facebook Fund Tests SEC Resolve

[SecularMotion]

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The efforts by Facebook to raise as much as $1.5 billion outside of regulated markets is the latest test of the walls between private and public markets.

Goldman Sachs this week approached its best private wealth clients with a tantalizing offer: a special fund that will own shares in the fast-growing social networking giant. Goldman gets to offer clients a hot investment opportunity, while Facebook gets to remain a private company.

It is the latest in a growing trend: the blurring of public regulated markets and hands-off private markets.

That trend had drawn the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which now must determine if it can build an enforcement case cracking down on investors and companies potentially skirting the rules on the books, or if it needs to clarify those rules itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/01/05/technology/tech-us-facebook-goldman-regulation.html?hp

[Javaman]

1. Facebook has awakened a sleeping giant...

but the sleeping giant just rolled over and went back to sleep.