
Warner Bros. will let Facebook users stream "The Dark Knight"; other titles might be forthcoming.
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesAs Facebook prepares for its initial public offering, expected in the second quarter of this new year, the biggest investment banks are facing off for a leading chunk of the social networking giant.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Mark Zuckerberg-masterminded company has been taking meetings with Wall Street firms since Thanksgiving, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley the frontrunners.
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According to the newspaper, Facebook could soon file its IPO offering; it’s projected to raise as much as $10 billion, thereby valuing it at $100 billion or beyond. (Fees for comparable IPOs have averaged 2.2 percent, the WSJ said, translating into a potential grand payoff of some $220 million.)
Without ruling out competitors, Goldman and Morgan Stanley are considered the top contenders for the Facebook prize: last January, the former led a private offering of $1.5 billion in Facebook shares; meanwhile, Morgan Stanley has been the No. 1 bank for Internet IPOs on a global scale.
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But even if Goldman loses out on the deal, it could still win big: if Facebook gets valued at $100 billion, the securities firm would then see its stake in the company doubled for a profit of $375 million. (With that earlier $1.5 million investment, the firm purchased less than 1 percent of Facebook.) Additionally, Goldman stands to rake in another $100 million on fees that clients paid to invest in the company as part of the private fund.
“There was a period in Microsoft’s evolution where they said, we want to put a computer on everyone’s desk,” Zuckerberg, who’s traded his trademark Adidas flip-flops for Brooks running shoes, said in an interview last month. “That’s the way that I want to run Facebook. … We want to be operating in a way that we’re working towards this longer vision of where we think the world should be.”