Baltimore-based money manager T. Rowe Price was revealed Thursday to be a major shareholder of Facebook, the social network giant that filed an historic multi-billion-dollar IPO with the SEC Wed.
FROM SALE OF FB SHARES
Would be 5 times higher
than Google’s 2004 IPO
BALTIMORE’S T. ROWE PRICE
A PRINCIPAL SHAREHOLDER
Facebook’s historic $5 billion initial public offering (IPO) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday names Baltimore money manager T. Rowe Price as one of the principal stockholders in the eight-year-old social networking giant.
According to the Facebook IPO, released Thursday by the United States SEC, T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. owns more than 6 million shares of FB’s Class A stock in addition to over 12 million shares of Class B, accounting for 5.2 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively, of shares outstanding.
Comparatively, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg owns 28 percent of Class B shares, and he and 10 executive officers and directors of the Internet giant collectively own 70 percent of those shares.
Zuckerberg and the officers and directors also own over 36 percent of the Class A shares, which carry one vote apiece. The B Class shares however are worth 10 votes each.
The A Class shares are the ones being offered in the IPO.
AS REPORTED BY THE BBJ
Large blocks are also owned by “entities affiliated with DST Global Limited,” the Facebook filing with the SEC declares, as well as “entities affiliated with Goldman Sachs.”
As reported Thursday by the Baltimore Business Journal, “The ownership may not necessarily mean big bucks for T. Rowe, however — at least not immediately. But it could for the money manager’s customers.
Facebook had 845 million users in 2011 & a $1 billion profit.
“The stock is not something the company holds for itself, spokes[person] Heather McDonold said, but rather within its mutual funds or other investment vehicles.
“T. Rowe does not plan to sell any shares in the IPO, according to Facebook’s filing,” the Business Journal said, adding that the firm “held stock in Facebook that was valued at $191 million a year ago.”
However “that figure does not include holdings of Facebook that T. Rowe might have in investment vehicles other than mutual funds,” the BBJ explained.
ONE OF BIGGEST DEBUTS
Facebook’s offering “could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the company on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time,” the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
“The company hopes to raise as much as $10 billion when it begins selling shares this spring, said people familiar with the matter.”
Historically the offering is the fourth largest by an American company, behind Visa, General Motors and AT&T Wireless.
Google’s 2004 IPO, the largest U.S. Internet offering to date, raised $1.9 billion at a valuation of $23 billion, less than one-fifth the Facebook expectation.
Facebook’s filing revealed the company showed a $1 billion profit for 2011, based on $3.71 billion in revenues, with 85 percent of those revenues coming from advertising and the remaining 15 percent from social gaming and other fees.
It had 845 million users worldwide in 2011, the filing declares, up 39 percent from just one year ago.
FB was launched in February 2004; it reported “100 billion friendships” this year, in its SEC filing.
— Alan Z. Forman
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
READ DETAILS OF THE HISTORIC FACEBOOK IPO FILING IN THURSDAY’S BALTIMORE BUSINESS JOURNAL (click here) AND THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (click here)
ALSO CHECK OUT THE FULL IPO FILING (click here
