LinkedIn Raise Its IPO to $3B
The largest professional social networking site LinkedIn has increased the Initial Public Offering it had planned to value it at more than $3 billion. The company is now planning to sell as much as $315.6 million in shares in order to expand its business according to the regulatory filing today. LinkedIn, the company based in Mountain View California has said in January that it had planned to raise as much as $175 million through an Initial Public Offering.
LinkedIn is among the first of a series of high profile web companies based in the United States which may sell their shares to the public as the technology valuations soar. Online coupon and best deals provider Groupon Inc. is also discussing an Initial Public Offering which would value the company at around $25 billion says the people who are familiar with the proceedings happening this year. It was last year offered a takeover offer by Google that exceeded $5 billion.
The professional social networking company LinkedIn has said today that it is in the process of setting the IPO to include 7.84 million Class A shares priced at around $32 to $35 each with a so called over allotment option enabling LinkedIn to sell another 1.18 million shares. The company has also got Class B shares which will be having ten times the voting power of Class A shares and it will represent 99.1 percent of votes after the offering.
Linked has said that would be using the proceeds from the Initial Public Offering to fund its existing operations and to expand the business which may include buying other companies or technologies. After the Initial Public Offering, the company will have around 94.5 million outstanding shares giving the company a value of more than 3 billion USD at 32 USD price per share.
LinkedIn’s shares were being sold by the secondary exchange SharePost Inc. in an auction this January for a price of $30 per share valuing the site at almost $3 billion, said the sources.
As of last year LinkedIn was providing employment to more than 1000 people and had over 90 million users in more than 200 countries around the world where as the Palo Alto, California based Facebook Inc. is the most popular social networking site with more than 500 million users worldwide.
LinkedIn members can make use of the site for various purposes like job search, recruitments, contacting Industry experts and so on. Users can have free profiles as well as paid subscriptions.
