Facebook IPO: $5 Billion Filing to Sell Stock

Facebook, in one of the world's most widely anticipated IPOs, or initial public offerings of stock, filed papers this afternoon to raise at least $5 billion and begin to sell stock this spring.

The filing was made online with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington. If all goes as planned, it will likely take until May for Facebook stock to begin trading on a stock exchange.

"There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, in a letter that accompanied the filing. "The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

"We hope to strengthen how people relate to each other," he said.

Zuckerberg, now 27, famously started Facebook when he was a student at Harvard University in 2004. Today, it has more than 800 million active users, and Zuckerberg said they have made more than 100 billion connections with each other.


http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-ipo-billion-filing-sec-sell-stock/story?id=15483472#.TynAuFzUMXE

LETTER FROM MARK ZUCKERBERG


Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.


We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do. I will try to outline our approach in this letter.

At Facebook, we’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television — by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together.


Today, our society has reached another tipping point. We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones — the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.


There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.


We hope to strengthen how people relate to each other.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2012/02/01/facebook-going-public-the-sec-filing-and-mark-zuckerbergs-letter/