Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » David Ebersman

Facebook Expected To Raise $10 Billion In Their IPO, Which Would Be The Largest For Any Internet Company

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 02:08:40 +0000

Facebook is anticipated to have one of the of the most electrifying IPOs in technology company history. The company is hoping to have a valuation of over $100 billion when they go public and would raise as much as $10 billion or more. Facebook is believed to be targeting their IPO at between April and June 2012.

To put a $100 billion valuation into perspective, Facebook would be bigger than HP, 3M, Yahoo!, Ford, and GM. Facebook would be about as valuable as Cisco Systems.

Facebook is planning their IPO at an interesting time. The stock prices for Internet companies that recently went public have been extremely volatile. Facebook rival LinkedIn went public this past May and their stock price then went as high as about $95.45. Today LinkedIn’s stock price closed at $60 and they have been trading at between $60 and $102.44 since then.

Sources with the Wall Street Journal said that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warmed up to the idea of having an IPO by between April and June 2012, but no final decisions have been made. Generally companies explore IPOs when they hit $100 million in revenue and Facebook is expected to debut with $4 billion in revenues.

Facebook CFO David Ebersmann has been leading the IPO talks with Silicon Valley bankers. Starting this April, Facebook would be required to make their financial information public because the company will cross the 500-shareholder limit by the end of the year. The SEC requires companies with over 500 shareholders to publicly disclose financial data. Facebook could still publish their financial information without an IPO.

Facebook’s IPO of $10 billion would be the largest for any Internet technology company. Google’s IPO in 2004 was a $1.9 billion sale, which gave them a value of $23 billion, which made them rank #3 in global Internet IPOs.

Facebook Moving Into 1 Million Sq. Ft. Property In Menlo Park

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:28:10 +0000

Facebook has announced that the company is moving from their current space in Palo Alto, CA to Sun Microsystem’s old 1 million square foot campus in Menlo Park, CA. The campus is located on the Bayfront Expressway and it has 11 buildings across 57 acres.

The campus can accommodate 3,600 people and it has 3,700 parking spaces. Facebook also bought a 22 acre building that connects the campus by tunnel. The move is expected to happen in June/July. Facebook has over 2,000 employees, which doubled since last year. They are starting to outgrow their space in Palo Alto. “We are reaching a point where we won’t be able to fit,” said Facebook CFO David Ebersman. “Facebook is growing 50% a year in terms of headcount and our growth plan is to continue hiring in the Bay Area.”

[TechCrunch]

Facebook Hires David Ebersman As New CFO

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:29:59 +0000

In late March, Facebook’s former CFO Gideon Yu had quit. The rumor about why Yu left was that he was not getting along with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. An internal memo went around that Facebook was looking for a CFO that has more experience with a public company.

This is where former Genentech CFO David Ebersman comes in. Genetech is a biotech company that was bought out by Swiss company Hoffman-La Roche for $46.8 billion on March 26, 2009. Genentech is also an investor in 23andMe, a genetics company that was started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife. Ebersman worked at Genentech for 15 years, but Hoffman already had a CFO making his job much less important.

Below is the full press release from Facebook that AllThingsD was able to get their hands on:

PALO ALTO, Calif.–June 29, 2009–Facebook today announced that David Ebersman, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Genentech, the pioneering biotechnology firm recently acquired by Roche, will become the company’s chief financial officer.

Ebersman will report to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will oversee Facebook’s finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company’s executive management team, which directs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will formally start in September 2009.

“We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook.”

“After meeting with Mark and the rest of the team, I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s drive and sense of purpose to help people connect and share,“ noted Ebersman. “Mark is constantly pushing the company forward and he’s assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I’m excited to join this effort and this new industry.”

Ebersman worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years. He served as the firm’s executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when Roche Group acquired the company. Prior to joining the company’s finance organization, he was senior vice president of Product Operations. He joined Genentech as a business development analyst. Previously, he was a research analyst at Oppenheimer & Company Inc.