Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn't Make Cut for Bloomberg Top 20 Global Billionaires Ranking

7:06 AM PST 3/5/2012 by Georg Szalai

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His stock may be worth less than $21 billion once the social network completes its IPO, which leaves him out of the ranking of the world's richest people.

NEW YORK - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s shares in the social networking giant following its planned IPO may leave the CEO's net worth too low to qualify him for the new daily Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the world’s 20 richest people, Bloomberg News said.

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Zuckerberg's 28.4 percent stake currently is valued at more than $28 billion, but his remaining stock may be worth less than $21 billion once the company completes its IPO, it said.

That would put him below L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, which holds the 20th spot on the current Bloomberg billionaires index. Mexican telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim heads up the index with $68.5 billion, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and investment guru Warren Buffett.

“The [ownership] percentage in the prospectus can be very misleading,” Sam Hamadeh, head of PrivCo, a research firm specializing in private companies’ financials, told Bloomberg. “It’s giving him credit for shares that he doesn’t actually own yet.”

As part of the IPO, Zuckerberg is expected to sell about $1.75 billion of stock to pay off tax obligations that he will incur when he exercises stock options, according to the report. That will dilute the CEO's stake in the firm to about 21 percent, Bloomberg said. At the network's projected $100 billion valuation, that would leave Zuckerberg's net worth at about $21 billion. Observers expect though that Facebook shares will rise on the first day of trading, which would boost Zuckerberg's fortune.

Facebook’s implied market value currently stands at about $101.4 billion based on the latest private market transaction, Bloomberg said, citing data from secondary share exchange SharesPost.

A spokesman for Facebook declined to comment.

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai