Facebook announced the price for its initial public offering at $28 to $35 per share Thursday afternoon. The company will offer 337,415,352 shares of Class A common stock at a yet-unspecified date.
A statement from Facebook reads:
"Facebook, Inc. is offering 180,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock and the selling stockholders are offering 157,415,352 shares of Class A common stock. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. This is our initial public offering and no public market currently exists for our shares of Class A common stock. We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $35.00 per share."
Rumors that Facebook would be setting its IPO price after the market closed surfaced early Thursday afternoon. The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook would price its shares in the high-$20s to mid-$30s range, putting the company at a valuation of $85 billion and $95 billion.
Facebook is set to become the most valuable U.S. Internet company at the time of its IPO, which could take place within weeks. The record is currently held by Google, which was valued at $23 billion when it went public in 2004.
What do you think of the social network's stock price? Let us know in the comments -- and check out our video above, which explains the IPO process.
Lauren Indvik contributed to the reporting of this story.
What Is an IPO?
What exactly is an IPO? What are the risks to a company in going public? What are the legal requirements?
If you find the business terms and market lingo confusing, check out our explainer video, which breaks down an IPO in plain language.
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