EBay to Spin Off Skype in IPO Next Year

(NEWSER) - The European wunderkinds who gave the world Skype have been approaching private equity firms in an attempt to buy their creation back from eBay, the New York Times reports. Niklas Zennstrom of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark sold the Internet phone service for $2.6 billion in 2005, but analysts think they could buy it back for about $1.7 billion. More»

Filing 'an American milestone'

(NEWSER) - The company Mark Zuckerberg founded in his dorm room eight years ago is expected to file for Silicon Valley's biggest-ever initial public offering today. The Facebook IPO will aim to raise $5 billion, and will value the company at between $75 billion and $100 billion, insiders tell Reuters . The filing paves the way for the stock to start trading in May, and many observers expect a twist, possibly involving a way in for Facebook's 800 million users. "Pandemonium is what I expect in terms of demand for this stock," an IPO expert tells AP . "I don't think Wall Street would want to anger Facebook users." More»

If sources are right, documents will be filed in matter of weeks

(NEWSER) - Facebook plans to hold its long-rumored, long-wished-for IPO the third week of May, sources tell Kara Swisher of All Things Digital . That would mean documents would have to be filed in a matter of weeks, since the SEC generally takes three to four months to evaluate them. Swisher is pretty confident in the scoop—"I called 143 people on this one," she brags—but warns that IPO planning can always "change, in a New York minute, to another month." More»

Firm to value itself at over $100B in deal next year, sources say

(NEWSER) - Facebook is readying its long-anticipated initial public offering for the second quarter of next year, and it's aiming for a deal that will value the company at more than $100 billion—more than $125 for each of its 800 million users, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal . The company is planning to raise some $10 billion with the stock offering, the sources say, which would make Facebook's IPO the biggest-ever for a tech company and the fourth-biggest for a US firm. More»

Daily deals king overpriced, analysts say

(NEWSER) - Groupon has raised $700 million in the biggest initial public offering by a US Internet firm since Google's 2004 IPO. The daily deals leader floated some 5% of the firm for $20 a share, above an initial range of $16 to $18, giving the company a market value of around $12.8 billion, Reuters reports. Groupon isn't making a profit, and there have been plenty of questions raised about its accounting procedures, leading many analysts to consider it overpriced. More»