Facebook said this afternoon that it has priced its previously-announced secondary offering of 70 million shares of Class A stock at $55.05 per share. At this price, some $3.85 billion in stock will be offered in the sale. The offering is expected to close on December 26th.
Facebook also said that Standard & Poor’s has officially added Facebook’s stock to the venerated ranks of the S&P 500 Index, as of market close today.
Here’s the breakdown of where the 70 million shares are coming from: “A total of 27,004,761 shares are being offered by Facebook, and a total of 42,995,239 shares are being offered by certain selling stockholders, including 41,350,000 shares offered by Mark Zuckerberg.” Facebook says that the money it makes in the sale will be utilized for “working capital and other general corporate purposes.”
It’s important to note that Zuckerberg’s participation in this stock sale does not mean that he’s cashing out of the company he helped found. This week Zuckerberg exercised a stock option to purchase 60 million shares of Class B stock, and Facebook says that the bulk of proceeds from his Class A sale will be used to “satisfy taxes that he incurred” with the Class B purchase. CEO problems, I guess.
