Click photo to enlarge This is the new thumb up sign out front, as the media waits for the filing of S-1 papers for the company's IPO, at Facebook's new headquarters, in Menlo Park, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012. (Karen T. Borchers/Staff)
Facebook has chosen to list its shares on the Nasdaq after its highly anticipated initial public offering, according to a Thursday report.
The New York Times reported, based on anonymous sources, that the Menlo Park social network picked Nasdaq over the New York Stock Exchange after the two exchanges battled for the listing. Facebook's IPO is expected to be the most closely watched in years and to shatter records for dollars raised by a tech company selling its shares for the first time.
A Nasdaq official declined to comment for this newspaper, while a NYSE spokeswoman referred questions to Facebook. A spokesman for the social network, which has been precluded by Securities and Exchange Commission rules from most public comment since filing to go public, declined to comment.
But Sam Hamadeh, head of a New York company that tracks financial data on private companies, said he had confirmed the news with a person close to the deal.
"It's a huge win for Nasdaq," said Hamadeh, the CEO of PrivCo.
He said Facebook had been leaning toward the Big Board as recently as a few weeks ago, but NASDAQ's lower fees and expertise with tech companies "ultimately won over Facebook," Hamadeh said.
Nasdaq is a tech-heavy stock index, but the NYSE has managed to snag a number of recent Silicon Valley IPOs, including Mountain View-based professional-networking service LinkedIn and San
Francisco online-reviews site Yelp.
Zynga, the San Francisco social-gaming company that provided 12 percent of Facebook's revenue in 2011, chose the Nasdaq for its IPO late last year.
Facebook, the world's largest social network, is expected to make its market debut sometime next month, bringing billions to the company in an IPO expected to value it at as much as $100 billion.
Caine Moss, a tech lawyer with Goodwin Procter in Menlo Park who's been involved with some 30 IPOs, said deciding which exchange to list on is more art than science. "For really hot technology companies, sometimes boards view it as sexy to be on NYSE, because you're associated with the big companies and transcend your sector," he said. "But normally Nasdaq will win the day for technology companies, because of the historic association with technology."
And while the winning exchange in a hot bidding war like Facebook's will reap millions of dollars through the IPO and during years of ensuing trading, Moss said bragging rights are just as important to NYSE and Nasdaq leaders.
Eager to showcase the action, "Nasdaq pulled out all the stops," Hamadeh said. He said he's been told the exchange agreed to give Facebook a rare, two-letter ticker symbol: FB.
Virtually all Nasdaq companies have four-letter tickers, Hamadeh noted. "Even Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) didn't get an exception."
Hamadeh also said that the schedule for Facebook's IPO "road show," which will see top company officials pitching the stock to large institutional investors, will announced next week, pending final review from the Securities & Exchange Commission.
Contact Peter Delevett at 408-271-3638.
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