Who won in the flat Facebook IPO?

Krystal Peak · May 18, 2012 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/26d6

Even if the price barely budged from the IPO price, there were million & billions to go around

While there wasn't the exceptional pop that many expected, its estimated that Facebook made over a thousand millionaires and more than a few billionaires in its move to go public.

Facebook hit the public market at $42.05, with the share price rising 12.7% in the few minutes of trading before it finally closed at $38.37 (just shy of 1% above the $38 IPO price). 

The shares came onto the NASDAQ around 11:30 am Eastern Time under the ticker symbol FB at a price of $38 each. Share prices rose quickly to $45 and then settled (momentarily) at $40. Analysts were expecting a lot of movement on this stock, but for the price to remained close to $40 throughout the rest of the day.

At $38 a share, the company valuation would be around $114 billion and the market cap is right at $105 billion. Facebook only experienced a 18% pop in its entire day of trading, over the IPO set price. That is not an exceptional pop in the Internet tech sector, especially considering the 100% jump that LinkedIn felt last year when it debuted on the public trading floor. 

Facebook raised $2.2 billion in equity financing, the most capital collected by any U.S.-based venture company. In the process of building and raising funds for this company, a whole lot of people are getting very rich, based on the $38 closing price of the company's first day on NASDAQ.

Here are the biggest winners of the day:

Mark Zuckerberg: CEO, founder and master of all things Facebook is obviously the big winner in this whole public offering. At just 28-years-old, the prince of Silicon Valley has entered the billionaire club with a serious bang. After all the updates and S-1 changes, Zuckerberg holds onto 31% of the voting power for the social media giant and maintains 503.6 million shares in the company after cashing out 30 million to cover taxes. So with share closed today at $38, that means The Zuck is worth a at least a whopping $19.4 billion. 

Sheryl Sandberg: First lady of Facebook, the COO, will join the like of Meg Whitman and Oprah in the billionaire ladies' society. The former chief of staff in the U.S. Treasury Department, Sandberg, secured her name in the financial pantheon. Sandberg, who holds a Harvard M.B.A., has been a vice president at Google and joined Facebook as COO in March 2008. Sandberg owns 1.9 million shares in the company and about 39.3 million restricted stock units. She also has 4.7 million unvested options which roughly translates to just a hair above $1 billion. 

David Ebersman: The Facebook CFO hold 2.4 million class B shares of stock in the company and 7 million RSU, would bring Ebersman's worth to around $500 million. 

Mike Schroepfer: The as vice president of engineering at 1 Hacker Lane is also banking quite a lot of dough. He became director of engineering at Facebook in July 2008 and was listed in 2010 Fortune's '40 top entrepreneurs under forty'. Schroepfer holds 2.3 million class B stocks and 6.5 million RSUs, which that brings his worth to about $500 million.

Theodore Ullyot: Since we know it takes a lot of patience and stamina to keep up with all of the privacy, security, and other legal concerns that Facebook constantly deals will, it is no surprise that Facebook hired the former chief of staff to onetime U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales as its general counsel. Ullyot relocated from D.C. to the Bay Area and join the Palo Alto social network and eventually snapped up just over 2 million class B shares and 3.8 million restricted stock units. This D.C.-insider is looking to add more than $300 million to his net worth now that the company is public.

Marc Andreessen: The serial-entrepreneur, venture capitalist, software engineer, billionaire known for investing in every big social and Internet-based innovation of the last 10 years was not going to let the Facebook opportunity go by without some serious investments.

Andreessen is still a sitting member of Facebook's board of directors of Facebook. With more than 6.6 million shares in Facebook, Andreessen is adding at least $250 million to his growing net worth.

James Breyer: Partner at Accel and President of Accel Management Company might just break his calculator with this IPO. Breyer has invested in more than 30 consumer Internet, media, and technology companies that have completed public offerings or successful mergers. In 2011 and 2012, Forbes ranked Breyer #1 in its Midas List of top technology investors. In August 2010, Fortune Magazine named Breyer the #1 smartest investor in technology, and one of the 10 smartest people in all of technology.

With a staggering 201.4 million class B shares and a 1.4% voting stock in Facebook, Breyer is looking at securing his Midas status with at least another $7.7 billion.

 

Peter Thiel: The main man of San Francisco tech investment, Thiel co-founded PayPal and went on to invest in SpaceX, LinkedIn, Zynga, Yelp, Spotify and Facebook. Thiel has been in the works with Facebook since 2004 and holds 44.7 million shares of class B stock worth $1.7 billion. 

Dustin Moskovitz: Roommate and co-founder with Mark Zuckerberg, Moskovitz left Facebook.com a few years ago to found a few more companies but still hold an 8.5% voting share in the company. In March 2011 Forbes ranked Moskovitz as the world's youngest self-made billionaire based on his stake in Facebook With 133.7 million share of class B stock, the young entrepreneur is adding $5 billion to his net worth. 

Goldman Sachs: The underwriters for this moneymaking IPO raised $1.09 billion selling stock in Facebook, cashing out almost half their stake in the social network.

The investment bank and its funds offered 28.7 million of its 65.9 million shares they own at $38 apiece, the top of the price range. Goldman Sachs sold 6.18 million of its own holdings, raising $235 million. Goldman Sachs, the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets, still holds another 7.1 million shares, valued at $270 million.

Sean Parker: The 32-year-old Parker owns 66 million Facebook shares worth $2.7 billion. He will sell 10 million shares if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares.

 Parker rose to fame as the co-founder of the file-sharing computer service Napster and the first president of the social networking Web site Facebook. Parker also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, and Airtime. 

As of March 2012, Parker's net worth was estimated to be $2.1 billion and with ownership of 69.7 million shares of Facebook and 4.4% voting share, Parker's Facebook stake is now worth in excess of $2.65 billion.

 

Others reaping the rewards from this monumental IPO include Zynga's CEO Mark Pincus, serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, Microsoft Corporation, Elevation Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, Greylock Partners, Mail.ru Group Limited, Tiger Global Management, Valiant Capital Opportunities, and T. Rowe Price Associates. Each of these investors were integral parts of Facebook's various funding rounds from September of 2004 through January of last year's $1.5 billion round.

Also noteworthy is the fact that big time rocker across the pond, Bono, owns 2.3% of the shares of Facebook through his investment group, Elevation Partners. Elevation paid $90 million for the shares in 2009. And now Bono and his partners' share is worth more than $1.5 billion.

On that musical note, I find it only suitable that you enjoy this great tune:

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