The biggest IPO in more than a decade—or perhaps in history—could happen in December, according to a rumor mill that jumped into overdrive on Friday. That's right, Facebook's initial public offering is imminent, according to reports.
PCMag learned from a well-placed source that it's been known "for months" that the social networking's initial public offering would be happening "soon," thought the source wouldn't confirm a December date.
Meanwhile, Business Insider reported Friday morning that "[a] source close to Facebook employees emailed us yesterday to say that the rumor flitting from employee to employee is that 'a Facebook S1 filing is coming really soon. Possibly as soon as next month.'"
The story goes that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now telling employees that the company's IPO is "coming," something he's "never said in the history of Facebook," according to Business Insider's source.
As the site's Nicholas Carlson points out, Facebook has exceeded the SEC's 500 shareholder threshold, meaning the company will have to publicly disclose its financials in April 2012, regardless of whether it goes public or not.
But another Business Insider source said Facebook hasn't even decided on which banks to act as underwriters for its IPO. The company is currently valued at about $80 billion on the secondary markets.
One reason for all the IPO talk heating up for Facebook is that several other so-called Web 2.0 companies have gone public in recent months, leading to speculation that the biggest domino yet to fall in that trending cycle must be preparing for its own offering in the near future as well.
In an appearance on the Charlie Rose Show earlier this month, Zuckerberg played his cards very close to the vest, saying only that Facebook would go public "when it makes sense," and that "[i]t's honestly not something I spend time thinking about on a day-to-day basis." But the Facebook founder did say that the purpose an IPO would be to be able to give back to those who invested in the company and helped it grow with their engineering talent.
"One of the ways you do that is to compensate people with equity and options," Zuckerberg told Rose.
Now that many of Facebook's key people can count their tenure at the company in multiple years, it may just be time to reward them with the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.