Facebook on Wednesday suspended secondary market sharing of the company’s stock in what is very likely a sign that the company plans to go public with an IPO in the near future.

A letter was sent from Facebook’s law firm, Fenwick & West  stating that shares of the company would stop trading immediately although a reason for that decision is still not known.

A recent report said Facebook would release its IPO in May and in an interview with Bloomberg Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo. said:

“Facebook and companies who do this don’t want to expose themselves to lawsuits related to the fact that some people had it before others and were able to trade on it,” and “The best way to protect yourself is to have no one able to trade.” read more

Multiple sources have revealed that Facebook executives plan to release the company’s IPO in late May 2012. The company is expected to go public in the third week of the month which means they would have to file with the SEC in the next month since it usually takes three to four months for the agency to review a company and approve its IPO.

While late May looks to be the much anticipated day a source close to the plans tells All Things D:

“This IPO planning could all change in a New York minute to another month.”  read more

When you’re attempting to launch an IPO that could value your company at more than $100 billion it’s important that you have all your finances in order and that includes even the smallest of items such as keyboards and mouse at tech firms, that’s why Facebook executives have begun employing computer accessory stocked vending machines to track inventory.

At one point executives at the company’s headquarters used a sign out sheet which allowed employees to sign out any computer accessories such as a mouse or keyboard that they required, however an insider says only about 5% of the company’s employees used the sheets and it was creating an accounting nightmare.

It wasn’t until an employee was walking through an airport and saw an Apple iPod vending machine that they came up with the idea to track components digitally with the machines. Employees must now swipe their name badges at machines located throughout the office in order to receive the computer components they need. read more

One Billion Facebook Users in 2012 could mean a $100 Billion IPO Valuation

Of course, for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, it would mean the world and then some.

Perhaps the most important thing for Zuckerberg would be that he was right about his prediction.  When Facebook reached 500 million users last July, Zuckerberg said that it would be impossible for Facebook not to reach 1 billion users.

That’s roughly equivalent to 16 to 20 percent of the world’s population.  But that is not to say that there really are 1 billion Facebook users with one Facebook account each or that all of the 1 billion accounts are actually actively being used in a meaningful way.

Still, what if each Facebook user was actually worth $10 each?

read more

Tonight on ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg opens up about the most recent happenings surrounding Facebook, specifically the companies future (IPO), the new Facebook Movie (The Social Network) and a recent lawsuit which claims he gave up his share of the company years ago.

Zuckerberg first talks about The Social Network basically downplaying the movies sensationalism of his life surrounding the founding of Facebook:

“I just think people have a lot of fiction…. The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time,” Zuckerberg said in his interview with Sawyer. “I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? …We just sat at our computers for six years and coded.” read more