Twitter, the quirky 140 character messaging service that’s become a global phenomenon, priced its initial public offering at $26 per share, valuing the seven-year-old company at over $18 billion.Twitter (TWTR) will raise $1.8 billion to fund future expansion by selling 70 million shares, which will open for trading on Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. Some analysts say the shares are worth $50 or more, so the price could explode higher once trading begins.
Started in 2006 as a simple way to share short messages and status updates among friends, Twitter has grown to 232 million active users who post 500 million tweets per day about everything from personal thoughts to celebrity gossip and breaking news.
The deal is the highest profile Internet IPO since Facebook (FB) raised $16 billion last May. And Twitter could rank as the second-largest debut of a U.S. Internet company in history if it ultimately surpasses the $1.92 billion raised by Google (GOOG) in its 2004 IPO, according to Dealogic. Underwriters of the Twitter deal have the option to sell up to another 10.5 million shares, if needed, under a standard IPO clause called the greenshoe option, pushing the total value to over $2 billion.
Twitter and its Wall Street underwriters led by Goldman Sachs (GS) are hoping the deal goes smoother than Facebook’s IPO last year. Facebook shares faced delayed trading due to technical glitches, then couldn’t hold above the IPO price of $38 due to oversupply and doubts about the company’s mobile strategy.
Via: Yahoo Finance
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