Professional-networking website LinkedIn Corp. is set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, which is expected to be a barometer for promising social networking firms moving to the public markets.
According to the company's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the business-orienting social networking site is pricing its initial public offering (IPO) between 32 and 35 U.S. dollars per share, valuing itself between 3 billion and 3.3 billion dollars. Under the ticker of LNKD, LinkedIn is hoping to raise as much as 274 million dollars in the offering.
The LinkedIn IPO could serve as a barometer for a series of established and booming social networking companies expected to make market debut later this year or early next year, including Facebook Inc., online coupon service Groupon Inc. and social gaming company Zynga Inc..
As many of public offerings in the technology world this year have not performed very well, some analysts have been worrying about LinkedIn's lofty valuation which is nearly 200 times last year's earnings of 15.4 million dollars.
So far this month, shares of China's social networking giant RenRen slipped below its offering price of 14 dollars shortly after trading began on the New York Stock Exchange. Wi-Fi network company Boingo Wireless Inc. fell 6.2 percent on its first day of public trading.
LinkedIn's future financial performance is another question to investors. Although it posted a strong growth in the first quarter of 2011, the company said in the filing to the SEC that it did not expect to be profitable in 2011 as it is looking to spend substantially on product development and building out its technology infrastructure.
Meanwhile, investors are still cautious as LinkedIn is at a largely different scale compared with consumer social networking site, like Facebook which currently has more than 600 million users, six times the size of LinkedIn.
Analysts are expecting demand to be strong for LinkedIn. Shares of the company have been traded at Secondary markets at prices ranging from 8.75 dollars in September of 2009 to nearly 31 dollars in March.
According to the company's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the business-orienting social networking site is pricing its initial public offering (IPO) between 32 and 35 U.S. dollars per share, valuing itself between 3 billion and 3.3 billion dollars. Under the ticker of LNKD, LinkedIn is hoping to raise as much as 274 million dollars in the offering.
The LinkedIn IPO could serve as a barometer for a series of established and booming social networking companies expected to make market debut later this year or early next year, including Facebook Inc., online coupon service Groupon Inc. and social gaming company Zynga Inc..
As many of public offerings in the technology world this year have not performed very well, some analysts have been worrying about LinkedIn's lofty valuation which is nearly 200 times last year's earnings of 15.4 million dollars.
So far this month, shares of China's social networking giant RenRen slipped below its offering price of 14 dollars shortly after trading began on the New York Stock Exchange. Wi-Fi network company Boingo Wireless Inc. fell 6.2 percent on its first day of public trading.
LinkedIn's future financial performance is another question to investors. Although it posted a strong growth in the first quarter of 2011, the company said in the filing to the SEC that it did not expect to be profitable in 2011 as it is looking to spend substantially on product development and building out its technology infrastructure.
Meanwhile, investors are still cautious as LinkedIn is at a largely different scale compared with consumer social networking site, like Facebook which currently has more than 600 million users, six times the size of LinkedIn.
Analysts are expecting demand to be strong for LinkedIn. Shares of the company have been traded at Secondary markets at prices ranging from 8.75 dollars in September of 2009 to nearly 31 dollars in March.
