Tom Johansmeyer | Business Insider
The action in Facebook is awfully hot for a private company. Recent news that Goldman Sachs is making $1.5 bn in equity in the social media company available to its high-net-worth clients has intensified interest that has persisted for several years, and it shows no signs of abating.
In a mid-December email, SharesPost, a marketplace for trading pre-IPO shares, announced the clearing price of its latest Facebook auction and said it anticipates ‘launching our next Facebook auction on January 10, 2011.’
Inside Investor Relations contacted SharesPost to see whether the auction had indeed begun, and a spokesperson for the company replied: ‘Unfortunately, it is company policy not to comment on any current or future planned securities auctions or offerings. Once there is something to disclose, we will make sure to reach out to you with any announcements/statements.’
SharesPost indicated plans for the additional auction last month. ‘The response from the SharesPost community to the auction was substantial and the auction was significantly oversubscribed,’ it said in an email. ‘As a result, when marketplace dynamics warrant it, we anticipate holding auctions in the new year for the shares of Facebook and other companies represented in the SharesPost marketplace.’
In reference to the December auction, the email continued: ‘SharesPost’s affiliated broker-dealer has completed a sealed bid auction of 165,000 shares of the common stock of Facebook, for certain qualifying SharesPost members. A clearing price of $25 per share was established.’
According to its website, SharesPost also helps its members transact in shares of social media sites Twitter, LinkedIn and Zynga, as well as dating site eHarmony, clean-tech company Silver Spring Networks and social bookmarking service Digg.
Disclosure: Tom Johansmeyer is the Group Marketing Director for The Cross Border Group, which publishes IR magazine and Inside Investor Relations.
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