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Comment by dmk23 | Hacker News Reader

With all the diffusion of their shares in the secondary markets they are on the way to reach 500 private shareholder limit and be forced by SEC to make the same kind of disclosures as a public company.

If anything the IPO timing is probably affected by their ability to stay under this magic 500 number.

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Spoke too soon, looks like they have already reached 500 according to the article.

In that case hard to see how much value would be in staying "private" given the same disclosures and the liquidity in the secondary markets.

That's because the reason they've been giving to the press "that they want to keep employees hungry" is not really the real reason. With the Google+ launch, they probably think that the market will undervalue them now if they make it public.

The IPO market is not good at the moment, so I suspect that the investors (mark too) are trying to maximize bang for the buck.

Maybe after Greece defaults and the EMU cleans up its act. 1+ year is not a bad guess for that to happen.

Doesn't Facebook have several thousand employees by now? If all of them were given only stock options, and not actual shares, then I'd be pissed. Options are more volatile than normal shares. So if the company stays private indefinitely in a sinking market won't the value of those options drop precipitously?

They have some type of restricted stock unit to get around the 500 limit with employees. http://allthingsd.com/20110107/with-500-shareholder-concerns...

>So if the company stays private indefinitely in a sinking market won't the value of those options drop precipitously?

i guess, they'll give out even more options to keep morale afloat and to counter offers from other companies. Ultimately, 6 months (or whatever restricted period is) after the IPO will be very challenging time for the stock when all this pent up cashing out happens :)

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