Facebook Cancels Secondary Offering

Facebook continued its downward trend Tuesday.  They announced Tuesday that they are cancelling their secondary offering.  This was announced after the market closed on Tuesday, with the stock reaching a low of $17.55 and a market cap of 37.98B.  Facebook’s plans are detailed in an 8-K filed with the SEC (the first link at end of blog includes the text of the 8-K) There will still be a substantial number of shares eligible to be sold over the coming months by employees and other individuals.  This may not be enough to keep them from cashing out.  Well, they may sell enough shares  for a Tesla and/or a house in Los Alto Hills or Menlo Park.  The following change was made for current employees as detailed in the 8-K:

“Our employees are subject to “market-stand-off” provisions that prohibit them from selling or otherwise transferring any of their common stock or securities convertible into or exchangeable for shares of common stock until November 14, 2012.  We intend to waive this market stand-off provision to allow our employees who were employed by Facebook through October 15, 2012, to sell shares held by them or shares subject to Pre-2011 RSUs (to the extent the service condition has been met) or vested stock options on the date that is four trading days following the announcement of our third quarter 2012 financial results, which announcement is currently scheduled for October 23, 2012.”  

This gives employees the chance to go to the head of the line (in some respects) and sell up to 234 million shares in advance of another 777 million shares that will become eligible to be sold on November 14.  These shares aren’t subject to a reduced tax when sold.  They’ll be taxed as ordinary income.  No 15% here!

It’ll be an interesting day when the quarter’s financial are announced October 23.  There may not be a lot of Zuckerberg trick or treaters on October 31 following the earnings announcement.

Tuesday’s market cap of $37.98 billion is within $13B projected by Anup Srivastava, an assistant professor of accounting information and management, Kellogg School of Management.  He ran a valuation model prior to the initial public offering  and arrived at a base case valuation of $25 billion.  Sometimes the smartest guys in the room are, uh, overly optimistic.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/04/facebook-cancels-secondary-offering/

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-is-facebook-worth-revisited-latest.html

 

September 30 Addendum: AVG Technologies IPO to Appear on Warsaw Stock Exchange November 10?

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October 8 Addendum - PC Magazine Review of AVG Internet Security 2011 AVG IS 2011 PC Magazine Review http://tinyurl.com/366n5mg

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Blog amended Sept. 30

It looks as if AVG Technologies Initial Public Offering (IPO) “may” take place November 10 with the stock appearing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The range of the initial market capitalization is unchanged from earlier articles in the press, 400 million to 800 million EUR. The November 10 IPO date appeared in the press in Europe in several publications during the latter half of the week of September 19. Nothing new about the stock appearing on the London Stock Exchange.

In the US, market activity in the security world has been high, as previously written. McAfee is being acquired by Intel. Hewlett Packard won a bidding war for 3PAR over Dell Computer. Hewlett Packard signed an agreement to acquire ArcSight, acquire ArcSight security and compliance management company. http://ir.arcsight.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=506759 There were also rumors about Trend Micro being approached for a takeover. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-09/trend-micro-shares-surge-in-tokyo-after-digitimes-takeover-approach-report.html. This activity could conceivably lead to a pop in the initial price when the stock goes public.

The end of September target launch date of the AVG 2011 set of internet security solutions is (obviously) well ahead of the company's IPO date. There will probably be a number of reviews by publications evaluating one or more of the products shortly after release. Test results by organizations such as www.virusbtn.com, www.icsalabs.com and www.av-comparatives.org will reflect the previous release of the products for awhile.

The translations below are from using “Google translate”.

Finance.cz

AVG is about to enter the Warsaw Stock Exchange

September 23, 2010

http://www.finance.cz/zpravy/finance/281364-avg-technologies-se-chysta-vstoupit-na-varsavskou-burzu-/

According to financial newspaper about a Czech producer of antivirus software, AVG their entry (IPO - a primary offering of shares) IPO would take place November 10, 2010. The value of the IPO would be between 400 mill and 800 million (EUR 2.5 billion to CZK 5 billion. Total Offer (IPO plus addition emissions (sic)) can be up to one billion PLN, ie about 6.3 billion CZK

Interia.pl

Czechs Rush Swiftly To Warsaw

September 25

http://biznes.interia.pl/gieldy/news/czesi-chyzo-pedza-na-warszawe,1536481

The Czech company AVG Technologies is incorporated in The Netherlands. Grisoft is a former founded in 1991 by John Gritzbacha and Tomas Hofer, author of the AVG antivirus program. The largest investor is a venture capital fund Polish Enterprise Investors.

AVG is planning to debut on November 10. It wants to collect one billion of the IPO zł.

Kurzy.cz

AVG Should Appear on the Warsaw Stock Exchange November 10th

September 22

http://zpravy.kurzy.cz/244684-avg-by-se-mela-na-varsavske-burze-objevit-10-listopadu/

Shares of Czech software company AVG would be on the Warsaw stock exchange were to occur the 10th November, write the Polish stock market Wednesday Parkiet Daily.

Warsaw Stock Exchange

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in Eastern Europe. There are 384 companies on the exchange. 361 of them are domestic and 23 foreign. Roughly 1/3 of the market value of the WSE is based on the foreign companies’ value. The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) operates based on the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments of July 29, 2005 under the supervision of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority http://www.gpw.pl/index.asp

September 30 Addendum

According to AVG CEO J.R. Smith in the September 29 edition of the Prague Post, there has been no decision to list shares of AVG Technologies on either the Warsaw or any other bourse.

"It's news to me," he said in response to reports by Reuters and the daily Hospodářské noviny that quoted unnamed sources. "The shareholders are always looking at options to get some liquidity. They weigh those decisions every day, but there has been no decision made by the shareholders or anyone else to list in Poland or Prague or anywhere else."

http://www.praguepost.com/business/5854-avg-boosts-product-ipo-vague.html

Public offering and high finance can have a sense of intrigue. Meanwhile, "Money Never Sleeps", the sequel to Michael Douglas's "Wall Street", opened last week in the United States and topped the box office. Gordon Gekko is back.