Facebook stock valuation $9.5 Billion, up 42%

Written by Jon Kutsmeda on Nov 19, 2009 5:54 pm

Facebook commom stock jumped 42% on private company stock exchanges like SecondMarket and SharesPost Inc. according to an article on Bloomberg this morning. These exchanges allow current and former Facebook employees to sell their shares to the public. Facebook is not yet a publicly offered stock, but as the sites membership has now grown to over 300 million users it has some speculating the most popular social networking site may sell stock through an initial public offering (IPO) in the next 12 to 18 months.

A Facebook IPO may attract the same level of attention as the Google share sale in 2004 which sold 19.6 million shares for $1.67 billion giving the company an initial market value of $23 billion. At $21, up from $14.77 in July, Facebook common shares are valued at roughly $9.5 billion.

One of the biggest reasons for Facebooks rapid success is it’s limited spam content and free user interface. Will a publicly owned Facebook be pressured to change under shareholder demand for profit?

Will these changes diminish the quality of Facebooks content that has contributed to its’ success?

Please share your thoughts.