Facebook IPO

Facebook Inc. could file papers for its initial public offering as early as this coming week, people familiar with the matter said, as anticipation mounts for what is likely to be one of the biggest debuts for a U.S. company.

The deal, seen as defining moment for the latest Web investing boom, could raise as much as $10 billion and value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, said people familiar with the matter. A valuation of $75 billion would be below earlier expectations.

The website, which in less than eight years has attracted more than 800 million members, has changed the way people across the globe communicate, from organizing political protests to sharing baby pictures.

Facebook could file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as this coming Wednesday, said one person familiar with the matter. But that timing is just one scenario Facebook executives are considering, the person said. Executives are also considering filing a few weeks later, the person said.

People familiar with the matter have said the company is targeting an IPO sometime between April and June.

A $10 billion Facebook offering would rank fourth among IPOs for U.S. companies, behind Visa Inc., General Motors Co. and AT&T Wireless, according to Dealogic. It would rank Facebook as the biggest U.S. Internet offering ever, replacing Google Inc., which raised $1.9 billion in 2004 at a $23 billion valuation.

At a $100 billion valuation, Facebook would be worth about the same as McDonald's Corp. and nearly half of Google.

Facebook's revenue is driven by its advertising business, as big brands rush to the site to interact with consumers through display ads and fan pages. Facebook has been able to increase its world-wide advertising revenue from $738 million in 2009 to $3.8 billion in 2011, according to estimates from research firm eMarketer. It isn't known if Facebook is profitable.

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The decision seven years ago by a Korean-American muralist and graffiti artist to turn down thousands of dollars in cash for his work painting murals on the walls of Facebook’s first office in Palo Alto, Calif., has made him a very, very, rich man.

The artist, 35-year-old David Choe, gambled and instead took an equal value of shares of Facebook’s stock.

The social network, in one of the world’s most widely anticipated IPOs, or initial public offerings of stock, filed papers Wednesday to raise at least $5 billion.

As a result, Choe’s shares could be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year, the New York Times reported.

The story of Facebook was yet to be told back in 2005 when Choe was invited by the social network’s then-president, Sean Parker, to decorate the new corporate headquarters with his signature murals.

Choe, who now lives in Los Angeles, said he thought at the time that the idea of Facebook, famously founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard University dorm room, was “ridiculous and pointless,” according to the Times.

Still, he accepted the job, and the stock.

Today, Facebook has more than 800 million active users who, Zuckerberg said, have made more than 100 billion connections with each other. In 2011, the site had profits of $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion.

The Times calculated Choe’s estimated stock fallout based on the word of a former Facebook employee who said “advisers” to the company at that time, such as Choe, would have received about 0.1 to 0.25 percent of the company. That stake would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, based on a market value of $100 billion.

While Facebook became a success, so did Choe, who has declined interview requests since the filing.

His work is sold for thousands of dollars, featured in gallery shows and exhibited in major museums.

In 2010, he released a self-titled book of his work, described as “funny, frantic and daredevil” in nature, and capturing, “the frenetic raw energy and gorgeous, intense work of gallery and street artist David Choe.”

Choe also created his own Facebook page that, today, has more than 6,000 subscribers, and a wall full of congratulations from his Facebook friends.

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