Facebook shares pop on secondary markets
February 3, 2012: 11:26 AM ET
Private market investors are now valuing Facebook at nearly $100 billion.
SharesPost reports that yesterday it completed an auction of 100,000 Facebook shares at $40 per share, compared to a $34 per share price from an auction completed on January 24. It's been nearly a year since Facebook's valuation has hit triple-digits on SharesPost.
SharesPost rival SecondMarket last completed Facebook trades at $33 per share, but that was before the social network filed its IPO papers.
Various news reports suggest that Facebook will seek a public market valuation of between $75 billion and $100 billion.
Private market trades are typically considered to come at discounts to where companies eventually price at IPO, but it doesn't always work out that way. For example, Groupon (GRPN) traded at around $18 billion on secondary markets last summer, before going public at a $14.7 billion valuation (it's currently at $15.2 billion).
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