Facebook’s IPO has hit a new low today. When Facebook released it shares in March for $38 a share it was the cream of crop shares to get. Well today the shares saw a value of 17.58 per share. The might have fallen, at least in the stock market.
“We expected investor attention to return to fundamentals after the technical challenges presented by lockup expirations over the next six months have been absorbed by the stock,” BMO’s Daniel Salmon said in a note.
The first lockup expiration came down last month, allowing 271 million shares to be sold by insiders and employees. That resulted in a 5 percent drop in Facebook’s share price. In just the next four months, over 1.5 billion shares will be made available for sale, possibly leading to even more sell-offs.
Even Facebook’s earliest, most ardent supporters have left the company behind. Late last month, Peter Thiel, Facebook’s first outside investor, sold about 20 million shares to score approximately $400 million in the exchange. Thiel, who put $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, cashed out $640 million in the IPO.
[cnet]
