Facebook: The shares shenanigans - Business Analysis & Features - Business - The Independent: "So, no honeymoon, then.A week ago, Mark Zuckerberg was celebrating his first morning as a married man, and a $19.1bn married man at that. The previous Friday, Facebook's founder had floated his social network on the stock market, with the eye-popping valuation of $104bn, making millionaires and billionaires out of his early staff. Then he had wed his Harvard University sweetheart Priscilla Chan in a romantic backyard ceremony that he had managed to keep totally secret despite months of planning – a feat that must be unique in the post-privacy era ushered in by Facebook."How long ago they seem now, those cheers and high-fives at company headquarters, and those wedding-day smiles. One week later, and Mr Zuckerberg might be forgiven for thinking: what in the hell happened?
After seven days of unfolding fiasco, Facebook's newly minted shares have plunged 18 per cent, lopping Mr Zuckerberg's personal fortune down to $15.8bn and the value of the company to $86bn. The 28-year-old founder is the subject of at least eight lawsuits that allege the flotation was, in effect, a fraud on the investing public. More alarming, even than that, it is as if the scales have fallen from investors' eyes, and where they once (10 days ago) saw an internet juggernaut destined to rake in billions of dollars from advertisers, now they see a juggernaut already plunging into a ditch.
The market debut of Facebook "was predicted to be the most important market event in recent history, generating tremendous enthusiasm", according to one of the lawsuits naming Mr Zuckerberg, his fellow directors and his bankers. "What transpired, however, has proven to be an additional blemish on Wall Street's already damaged reputation and provided more evidence that investment banks and their clients are apt to favour hedge funds and other large clients over retail customers."
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