The company is looking to raise $10 billion, €7.9 billion at a $100 billion valuation

Jan 16, 2012 15:31 GMT  ·  By

It's not much of a secret that Facebook will have its IPO this year. What's more, the IPO was known to be most likely coming in late spring. Facebook said as much about a year ago, although it didn't use the word IPO at the time.

But we now have a more accurate date, the third week of May is said to be the date of the most anticipated IPO of the last decade, if not more. It's going to be a record-breaker too, likely one of the largest if not the largest IPO in history.

All Things D reports that, for now, the IPO is set for late May. This means that Facebook will have to file it, publicly, with the US Securities and Exchange within a month or so.

If and when that happens, the details of the offering will become available, including the all-important and very intriguing valuation figure as well as how much money Facebook hopes to raise in the IPO, of course.

Rumors say that Facebook is looking for a $100 billion valuation, about €79 billion, and intends to sell ten percent of the company, to raise $10 billion.

Questions about Facebook's sky-high valuation have been raised on numerous occasions. In fact, people have been questioning the figures ever since Facebook was worth $10 billion, or less in the minds of the critics.

There may be a point to the criticism though, $100 billion is quite a large valuation for a company that is still only making about $4 billion, €3.15 billion in revenue. That's for 2011, the figure is expected to grow by more than 30 percent this year. But that's still a paltry sum compared to the other internet giants.

Google has a market cap of a little over $200 billion, €158 billion, but made something in the range of $37 billion, €29 billion in revenue in 2011, a 27.5 percent increase over the previous year.

Facebook's plans may still change at this point and the date moved back, but there's clearly going to be an IPO and details should be coming very soon.