Facebook Investor Promises “No Near Term IPO”

January 26, 2010

Believe it or not, the stock market's not looking too terrible these days; the Nasdaq's risen almost 12.5 percent in the last six months, and just shy of 50.0 percent in the last year. Still, it seems that Facebook absolutely will not go public in 2010.

Accel Partners and DST are two of Facebook's biggest financial backers, and at the Digital, Life, Design Conference in Munich, one man from each organization spoke about the social network's prospects. They're both taking a very relaxed (yet careful) approach.

Jim Breyer, a managing partner at Accel, said according to Rafat Ali, "I am happy to announce that there will be no near term IPO on Facebook; this means 2010. For them, it is all about getting the product and team right."

Yuri Milner, CEO and Founding Partner of DST, then added, "We have permanent capital, we don't have to return money to investors, so we have unlimited patience. We want to have the vision follow-through. It is up to the board and management to make the call."

This puts Facebook at least somewhat in line with Twitter, which has also ruled out a 2010 IPO. Now we'll just have to start keeping an ear out for its plan regarding next year.

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Facebook Stock Maneuver Feeds IPO Rumors

November 25, 2009

Consider yourself forewarned: the official line is that "Facebook has no plans to go public at this time." Just the same, a financial maneuver the company's performing has raised a few eyebrows since it seems to point towards that possibility.

Jessica E. Vascellaro reported this afternoon, "The company is in the process of converting all current shareholders to Class B stock, which carries ten times the voting power of Class A stock . . . . Those shares will remain Class B shares unless the owner sells them during an initial public offering, at which time they will become Class A shares . . ."

This sort of exercise helps ensure that existing stockholders retain control of a company regardless of what happens on an open market. In Facebook's case, Mark Zuckerberg, who owns many, many shares, would benefit most. (Important note: It's not necessarily an "evil" move, though, as Google did the same sort of thing for the sake of Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt.)

So what we have here is one more piece of evidence (remember the preexisting enthusiasm surrounding its stock?) that Facebook could be headed towards an IPO.

Even if Facebook doesn't have definite plans to go public, the recession at least hasn't completely scared the company away from the idea, then.