Social networking giant Facebook has filed an initial public offering, which could raise as much as $10 billion and could value the company between $75 billion and $100 billion.
However, the company said it planned to raise $5 billion in its stock sale, the largest public offering on the history of a web company.
Also, Facebook, for the first time, gave potential investors a glimpse into its financial structure.
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In its filing before the Security and Exchange Commission, Facebook said in 2011 it generated revenue of $3.71 billion, an increase of 88 per cent from $1.97 billion the year before and 377 per cent from 2009.
In 2011, its income was $1 billion, an increase of 65 per cent from 2010. Facebook derives 85 per cent of its revenues from advertising, and the rest from social gaming and other fees.
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“The company hopes to raise as much as $10 billion when it begins selling shares this spring ...,” The Wall Street Journal said in a report.
Founded in 2004 by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook now has some 845 million active users, who in all upload 250 million photos a day.
According to the filing, Mr. Zuckerberg made a salary of $483,333 last year, in addition to a $220,500 bonus for the first half of 2011.
“The paperwork portrays a company that makes the vast majority of its money from selling display ads targeted to its users who have revealed to Facebook much about their lives,” the Washington Post reported.
Facebook is expected to file its paperwork several times over the next few months, updating the information it provided to the SEC on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in a letter to potential investors, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook thought a more open and connected world would help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services. “As people share more, they have access to more opinions from the people they trust about the products and services they use. This makes it easier to discover the best products and improve the quality and efficiency of their lives,” he wrote.
Fulfilling commitment
Noting that Facebook was not originally founded to be a company, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote: “This is how we think about our IPO as well. We're going public for our employees and our investors. We made a commitment to them when we gave them equity that we'd work hard to make it worth a lot and make it liquid, and this IPO is fulfilling our commitment. As we become a public company, we're making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfil it.” As part of building a strong company, he said his team works hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people.
“We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way,” he said.
“The word ‘hacker' has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers.
In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done.
“Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I have met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world,” he wrote.
“The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it's impossible or are content with the status quo,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.