Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.
Facebook will likely go public in the first quarter of next year with a valuation of more than US$100 billion, according to a CNBC report on Monday. [Related report: Dot-com listing frenzy a boom or a bubble?]
CNBC said in the report that Facebook will possibally file disclosure reports with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as early as October or November this year, citing people familiar with the matter as saying.
People who are on Wall Street and track this information told CNBC that they think the social networking giant's initial public offering (IPO), if and when it happens, could put the valuation of the company at a shocking 100 billion dollars.
Facebook, however, is required to disclose financial information if they have more than 500 private investors, according to SEC's rules.
"The company has until the end of April 2012 to disclose their financials, but they may just want to get ahead of that by doing a formal initial public offering, I'm told. And that could happen in the first quarter of the year," said CNBC Wall Street reporter Kate Kelly.
Facebook is also facing internal pressure since employees have not been allowed to sell their private shares on the secondary market since last spring. An IPO would make it easier for employees to cash in their shares, said Kelly, citing unamed sources.
Meanwhile, latest data show that users of Facebook has been decreased since last month in the United States, Canada and several European countries, indicating that the company could have limits on expansion in its mature markets.
