It has been assumed that Facebook plans to file its IPO sometime in May, and now has reportedly set the 17th of next month as the date, after months of speculation regarding the matter in general. Sources who have access to the dealings of the company have relayed the date, and speculate that as long as the SEC agrees, mid-May should be in order.
The possibly $5 billion mid-May IPO correlates with earlier reports of Facebook listing on NASDAQ as FB, and is going for a valuation of $100 billion, which some have said too high. Lagging mobile development for the platform might hurt the valuation, though the recent acquisition of Instagram might likewise help.
So, in roughly a month, the IPO will likely be filed. Facebook has recently disproved Paul Ceglia’s claims of owning half of the company, but there are larger issues that could concern institutional investors like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs – what if Facebook, which in the end is solely based on the retention of users, eventually goes down the same path of Myspace? Though this doesn’t seem likely, if Facebook were to plainly lose popularity amongst its 800+ million active followers, it could become the latest sort of dead content heap.
