Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin: Are they worth it?

IPOs are back in the reckoning. And this time it’s none other but Uncle Sam that’s the epicenter and the boys raising the bars are from the dot-com business. With most of them having or claiming to have gained the critical mass (for the much abused “network effect”), it’s not a surprise that the valuations are simply going through the roof. The four of the biggest newsmakers are Facebook, twitter, Linkedin and Groupon. Though likes of Skype, Zynga, Yandex (Russian search engine), Pandora (music streaming company) etc. have been in the news as well. 

So, what’s the fuss all about? For that let’s have a look at the user base, revenue and the predicted valuation for some of these tech firms.

Firm	User Base	Revenue	Profit/Loss	Valuations
Pandora	90 m	$51m	-$6.8m	$4.2bn
Linkedin	100 m	$243m	$15m	$8.9bn
Zynga	279 m	$942m	$47.2m	$15-20bn
Facebook	700 m	$4bn	-	$100+bn
Twitter	300 m	$100m	-	$7.7bn
Groupon	83 m	$713.4m	-$389.6m	$20bn

Public Offers made Public - IV

After introducing Public Offers in the first part, discussing some regulatory changes in primary markets in the second part, pros and cons of the 25% listing norms in the the third part, the fourth and the final part will focus on ASBA, another revolutionary change by SEBI.

ASBA or Application Supported by Blocked Amount is a new method introduced by SEBI for making investments in IPOs, Mutual Funds and NFOs. SEBI has tied up with self-certified syndicate banks which shall provide this facility.

Public Offers made Public - III

After introducing Public Offers in the first part and discussing some regulatory changes in primary markets in the second post, the third post will focus on the pros and cons of the recently proposed 25% listing norms.

On 4^th June 2010, the Ministry of Finance amended the Securities and Contract (Regulation) Rules, 1957 to set a limit of a minimum 25% public shareholding for initial public offers (listings) by companies on Indian stock exchanges as well as for continued listing.

Public Offers made Public - II

After introducing Public Offers in the first part, the major focus of the second part of the series will be to discuss some of the Regulatory Changes in Primary Markets in the recent past and their likely implications.

Reduction in IPO timeline from 22 days to 12 days: Market regulator SEBI has amended the existing rules regarding the time period between closure and listing of IPOs. The window has been reduced from 22 days to 12 days.

Public Offers made Public - I

In this series of blogs, I’ll focus on some of the recent changes in the regulations related to public offers. I will also discuss some of the likely impacts of these changes. In the first part I will introduce public offers in brief.  

In order to finance their expansion, firms rely on different methods to raise capital. While deciding the mode of financing, the company looks at different aspects of capital i.e. cost of financing, amount of capital required, capital structure, size and reputation of the firm etc. The primary methods used by corporations to raise capital are: Bonds, Stocks, Borrowing & Retained profits. In this blog we will focus on the stocks as a method of financing.