London, Nov 20 (ANI): Mark Zuckerberg will choose to float Facebook next year, that would be the biggest consumer technology public offering in history, a significant investor in the social networking site has said.
Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and one the most successful and high profile serial technology investors with stakes in several other major web companies, suggested the Facebook founder will opt to go public in the "first half of next year".
"I suspect that Mark will choose to go public because the company has to put in a lot of financial work in order to make the necessary filings and so he might as well make sure he benefits employees and ultimately the company from the level of work that's already involved," the Telegraph quoted Hoffman, as saying.
"Going public would benefit Facebook in lots of ways, namely having public currency to do acquisitions. So Mark [Zuckerberg] might as well get the benefit as well as the cost," he said.
"Given that logic - I would suspect that some time in first half of next year, he will engage in the IPO process," he added.
Hoffman, who recently enjoyed a successful float of the business networking company he created in 2003, agreed that Facebook's IPO could set new records.
"It could be the largest ever consumer technology IPO. Facebook has deferred for a long time. The pattern 10 years ago was to go out [float] as soon as you could," he said.
"The pattern now is to build a lot of inertia in your business and Facebook has done that. This will lead to a high tension IPO with a robust valuation," he added.
Facebook is under pressure from the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to disclose how many private shareholders it has on the secondary market. The limit for a private company is 500.
It has until the end of April next year to either make the necessary filings or IPO. (ANI)
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