After months of speculation, a two-week long roadshow, and hours of pent-up waiting, it’s finally happened. Facebook has officially started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
The company’s share price opened at US42, higher than the US$38 it was offering, before leveling back down to US$40.
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Earlier today CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell that opened trading, officially signalling Facebook’s first day as a publicly trading company.
It took a few hours, however for the company to officially begin trading stock.
Facebook’s IPO is one of the largest in tech history, giving it a valuation of US$100-billion, making Zuckerberg insanely rich, and his employees very rich. A number of investors are also coming out of the deal smiling, as is U2 front man Bono who is believed to have made an extra US$1.5-billion today after buying a 2.3% stake Facebook through his investment group, Elevation Partners a few years ago.
Whether or not Facebook’s IPO is the beginning of another tech bubble like the one we saw around the turn of the millennium remains to be seen. Thing is, there’s going to be a lot of people floating around Silicon Valley with a lot more money than they’ve ever had before. That’s not exactly renowned for being a recipe for common sense.
