Much anticipated Facebook IPO set to break internet flotation records

Facebook, the social-networking website that began eight years ago in a university dorm, last night filed to raise $5bn (€3.8bn) in an initial public offering.

Facebook, which now boasts more than 800 million users, did not specify the number or price of shares it will offer in a regulatory filing today. The $5bn amount is a placeholder used to calculate fees and may change. The company hired Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America, Barclays and Allen & Co to manage the IPO.

Co-founded in 2004 by then 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has grown into the dominant social-networking company, squelching competitors such as MySpace. Revenue in 2011 surged 88% to $3.71bn from a year earlier, according to the filing.

“Investors are still very much willing to pay up for growth,” Paul Bard, director of research at the investment-advisory firm Renaissance Capital LLC in Greenwich, Connecticut, said before the filing.

“There’s just phenomenal interest in this company and its potential.”

Facebook is considering a valuation of $75bn to $100bn, two people with knowledge of the matter said last week. The stock would trade under the symbol FB on either the Nasdaq Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange.

Last year, Facebook said it expects US regulators to require that it disclose financial results by Apr 30, 2012, if the company has not gone public by then.

Facebook decided to wait until 2012 for its IPO to give Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, people familiar with the matter said in 2010.

Last year yielded the most internet IPOs in a decade.

Sites such as LinkedIn, Pandora Media, Groupon, and Zynga all sold shares last year.

Led by CEO Zuckerberg, 27, Facebook is increasing its focus on mobile technology. It expects its next 1bn users to come mainly from mobile devices, rather than desktop computers.