A group of Facebook employees and investors who tried to sell $1 billion of stock in the social network at a $90 billion valuation found that, for once, the secondary markets weren’t willing to oblige. The group had to endure lowering the price to an implied valuation of $70 billion to see if that would help. Despite the fact that as recently as January Facebook was valued at $50 billion (by the market manipulators over at Goldman), the New York Post sees that this recent development means “the honeymoon is over for tech.” Other evidence: SharesPost, an online market for private shares, reported that Facebook stock hit $34 in January and is now down to $32. The Post found an analyst named Justin Byers with VC Experts who said, “Even $70 billion is a stretch.” Based on internal Facebook documents, Byers calculated the Facebook shares were worth around $12 in January, which put the company’s value closer to $25 billion.
Here’s the thing, though, everyone already knew in January that Facebook wasn’t actually worth $50 billion. In fact, leaked documents that Goldman sent around showed that in the first nine months of 2010, Facebook made $355 million in net income. If growing the valuation investors are willing to trade at from $50 billion to $70 billion from January to April before you’ve even showed your full financials is a sign that the honeymoon is over, we’d say the market is still looking pretty bubblicious around the edges.
Facebook’s value plateaus as $90B deal flops [NYP]
Earlier: Goldman’s Leaked Memo to Rich Investors Exposes Facebook’s Actual Earnings
