FB’s corporate structure
FB has two classes of common stock, A shares and B shares. The two are identical, except for:
1. A shares, which are the kind being sold in the public offering, have one vote each on matters of corporate policy
B shares, which are held by Mark Zuckerberg and other insiders, and which can’t be sold, have ten each. This way insiders continue to control the company while raising money from outsiders.
2. B shares are freely exchangeable into As, giving holders of the Bs a way to turn their holdings into cash. But when insiders sell they don’t give “extra” votes to the buyer.
Any investor in internet companies–from Google to LinkedIn–is familiar with this structure. It has been around a lot longer than that, though. Hershey has a similar structure, for example, as do the New York Times and News Corp.
the offering
FB plans to sell 337, 415,352 shares in the offering.
Of that, 180 million will be new shares issued by the company. The rest will come from employees cashing in stock grants they received as part of their compensation, and from venture capital investors cashing in stock they bought in private financing transactions.
Assuming the stock is sold at the mid-point of the announced pricing range of $28-$35 a share, the IPO will raise $10.6 billion and will imply that the entire company is worth just under $100 billion.
$5.6 billion of the proceeds will go to FB; the rest will go to selling shareholders–VCs and present/past employees.
overallotment
IPOs routinely line up commitments by sellers to provide an additional amount of stock for sale in the IPO if demand proves exceptionally strong. In this case, FB has agreed to sell 6 million shares more, selling shareholders another 44.6 million.
why is FB going public?
In the Use of Proceeds section of the prospectus, FB says: “…we do not currently have any specific uses of the net proceeds planned.” The company also already has $3.9 billion of cash on the balance sheet. So, why? Two reasons:
–from Microsoft three decades ago, to Google, to Facebook and Linked In, tech companies have attracted highly talented workers despite relatively low salaries and the risky nature of any job with a startup. In fact, prospective employees seek these companies out. The financial motivation is the chance at a huge payout on stock options or restricted stock sold in a successful IPO. The same holds true for venture capital investors.
So FB has an obligation–implied, or possibly specified in contracts with VCs–to have an IPO.
–ultimately the money will be spent on R&D, and to accelerate FB’s expansion to mobile devices and in markets outside North America.
expiring lockups
When they bought FB shares, venture capitalists may have agreed not to resell them until after the IPO. Such agreements are called lockups.
The selling shareholders have also made further lockup agreements with the underwriters not to sell more stock for specified periods after the IPO.
The clock starts ticking on them as soon as the IPO takes place.
–171.8 million shares become eligible for sale after 90 days
–another 137 million are freed up in the following three months
–another 235 million leave lockup in the six months after that.
The lockups mean holders can’t sell during the period the shares are restricted. It doesn’t mean holders have to sell once the restrictions are lifted.
This is a glass-half-empty/glass-half-full sort of thing. As long as the stock price is at least stable, history says few will feel rushed to sell once their lockup expires.
NASDAQ listing
Although Facebook picked a ticker symbol with two letters, something more closely associated with the NYSE (most NASDAQ stock symbols have four letters), it has chosen to list on NASDAQ.
One possible inducement for FB to choose NASDAQ–the exchange has just reduced the “seasoning” requirement for a new stock to enter the NASDAQ benchmark indices to a mere 90 days. It seems to me that FB will become an index constituent as soon as possible.
This is important. It means that every index mutual fund or ETF that tracks NASDAQ indices will be compelled to buy FB shares. It also means that any active manager whose performance is measured using NASDAQ as a benchmark will have to think twice about “flipping” (immediately reselling) any shares garnered in the IPO. In fact, if the manager takes a positive view on the stock, he may have to buy a lot more, in order to have a higher-than-benchmark weighting.
the IPO video
It’s part of the IPO roadshow. Check it out.
More tomorrow.