Facebook: No IPO before the end of 2012

The success of the Facebook social network and its huge economic power continue to whet the appetite of investors looking for its introduction to the stock market. An IPO won’t happen before the end of 2012 at earliest though.

The pressure continues to mount on Facebook’s management, with investors eager to speculate on Facebook’s shares once the company lists on a stock exchange due to its enormous success in recently passing 500 million users.

But the executive group, led by Mark Zuckerberg, wants to take their time before raising an IPO as this will require that they provide detailed quarterly reports about their financial situation.


Investors will have to be patient
While a stock market IPO is certainly on the cards, it won’t happen in the short term despite speculation to the contrary being made in July 2010. The company wants to firstly complete certain strategic objectives, both in terms of client numbers and finances, to assure their economic model is sound.

This vision has been confirmed by one of Facebook’s administrators, Peter Thiel, who is also a venture capitalist and co-founder of Paypal, who stated that any Facebook IPO would not take place before the end of 2012, and then only if their objectives were met.

According to Reuters, the company generated revenue of 800 million dollars in 2009 and would already be profitable after barely six years of existence. But they want to firstly consolidate their position as the world’s number one social network.