ipo

Facebook shares up after Zuck's comments on post-IPO woes

Wall Street is reacting positively this morning to comments made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday as he tried to rally investors upset over the stock's recent nosedive.

As of morning trading, the stock has risen almost 6 percent, hovering at around $20.50. That's little more than a $1 dollar gain from yesterday. But it's still a hopeful and welcome change from the recent performance, which saw the stock drop below $18 a share last month from its initial IPO price of $38. The shares also were already up more than 3 percent yesterday in after-hours … Read more

An energized Mark Zuckerberg seeks to calm Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO -- An energetic Mark Zuckerberg addressed a rapt crowd at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here. The 28-year-old CEO wore his traditional gray T-shirt and sat on the edge of his chair as TechCrunch co-founder and angel investor Michael Arrington fired questions at him, starting with the botched IPO. Zuckerberg powered his way through the conversation, talking fast and confidently about the opportunities that lie ahead for Facebook and its investors.

While the hall was packed with techies and Zuckerberg had the hometown advantage, he clearly knew that he was talking to Wall Street -- and, by default, all … Read more

Zuckerberg: 'Employees want to make a bunch of money'

SAN FRANCISCO--Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in order to take his company where he wants it to go, he knows that he needs to help prospective -- and current -- employees "make a bunch of money."

Facebook's mission has been to build a great service and to put that mission in front of profit margins, Zuckerberg told a packed audience at TechCrunch Disrupt today (see CNET's live blog). The idea, he said, is that building a great service and a great company go hand in hand. And getting great employees to help with that mission … Read more

Facebook: 'No plans' to enter China anytime soon

A Facebook executive has said at a social media conference in Hong Kong that there are no plans for the social network to hit the Chinese market.

Facebook's North Asia director, Jayne Leung, told conference attendees that the social network would not launch in the region any time soon, according to Meld Magazine editor Karen Poh on Twitter.

That statement comes nearly a year after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg expressed similar sentiments. Of course, at that time Zuckerberg also said that Facebook was in no hurry to make a bid for the stock exchange.

Less than six months later, … Read more

Zuckerberg says he won't sell any Facebook shares for 12 months

In an SEC filing late today, Facebook said that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg "has no intention to conduct any sale transactions... for at least 12 months."

This comes as Facebook's stock today fell once again, closing down 1.8 percent to a record low of $17.73. That's more than 54 percent off its mid-May IPO price of $38.

Just after the IPO, Zuckerberg sold about $1.1 billion worth of stock, a move the company said was to cover his tax bills. Zuckerberg still holds 504 million Class B shares (those are the ones … Read more

Another indication the bloom's coming off the Facebook rose

Add another entry to the lengthening list of reduced revenue estimates for Facebook.

eMarketer said in a report issued earlier today that it has cut its 2012 revenue estimates on Facebook from more than $6 billion to around $5 billion.

In February, eMarketer estimated that Facebook's total revenues would go beyond the $6 billion mark this year, but the company's underwhelming performance in the first and second quarters of 2012 has changed the opinion of analysts.

The new estimate has Facebook's revenue at a 35.9 percent increase from 2011, according to eMarketer's forecast, but analyst … Read more

What Zuckerberg must do to right the Facebook ship

All is not well at Facebook. Some have even started calling for CEO Mark Zuckerberg's head. But the panic is premature, and the social network has plenty of time and opportunity to turn things around.

Facebook's stock price has traveled south since its flashy (and disastrous) debut in May. Facebook closed at $19.44 per share on Wednesday, barely half of its $38 IPO price.

Why is Facebook's share price dropping like a boulder off a cliff? M&A specialist Marty Wolf provides an excellent explanation, but I'll summarize the key points:

Facebook's price-to-earnings … Read more

Facebook co-founder Moskovitz unloads $9M in stock

Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder who was one of Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard roommates, has joined Facebook insider Peter Thiel in selling some of his stock.

Unlike Thiel, who sold the bulk of his holdings, Moskovitz sold just 450,000 shares, according to an SEC filing. That represents a sliver of what he owns, though it still brought in a cool $9 million.

Moskovitz sold the shares over the last three trading days, 150,000 shares each day. The prices -- ranging from $19.38 to $19.99 -- aren't pretty considering that Facebook went public at $38 a … Read more

Bigger ads, bigger bucks? Facebook feels Wall Street heat

See that image above? That's a plain old giant banner ad grabbed from my Facebook page. It appeared after I logged out. Facebook actually calls them "Logged Out" ads. It rolled them out in February when it was trying to show Madison Avenue it was serious about brand advertising in advance of its IPO.

A social ad? Sort of, I guess. It wants me to "like" it to get an insurance quote. But make no mistake: While Facebook can come up with whatever terminology it wants, this is the sort of ad that Mark Zuckerberg … Read more