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Facebook Wednesday upped the number of shares that will be sold when it IPOs Friday by almost 25% or 84 million shares to about 421.2 million shares of Class A common stock. The overallotment has also been increased from 50.6 million to 63.2 million. If all 484.4 million shares move, it'd estimated $18.4 billion could change hands, up from $14.7 billion. The added shares will be coming from early investors. The move, which gains Facebook nothing, will also cut CEO Mark Zuckerberg's dominant voting power from 57.3% to around 55.8%. Pricing remains, at least for the moment, at between $34 and $38 a share. It won't be locked down until Thursday night when it could be increased again. The range was between $28 and $35 until Tuesday and the stock has traded as high as $44 in the secondary markets recently. Reuters said the increase in size would make it the third-largest... (more)

GM to Pull Facebook Advertising: WSJ

Here we are less than three days before Facebook's historic $100 billion IPO and General Motors or "people familiar with the matter" let slip to the Wall Street Journal that GM's going to stop advertising on the social networking site because the paid ads are ineffective. The big American carmaker still reportedly intends to do marketing through Facebook but that's not going to put any money in Facebook's pocketbook. The paper says GM started having doubts earlier this year and met with Facebook managers, leaving the meetings "unconvinced advertising on the web site made sense." ... (more)

Facebook Ups Its IPO Price

You knew this was gonna happen, right? Facebook has repriced its IPO upwards from $28-$35 a share to $34-$38 a share giving it a valuation of $92 billion-$104 billion, a neighborhood more to its liking than the original $77 billion-$96 billion. The actual price won't be set until Thursday night. Bloomberg claimed the company's IPO roadshow was producing less institutional demand for the stock than expected because of less-than-rosy revenue forecasts last week - though the increase in the price would seem to belie that statement - and the AP and CNBC did a survey that found half t... (more)

Yahoo Board Member Quits over ResumeGate

Yahoo board member Patti Hart, who led the search committee that resulted in Yahoo hiring PayPal president Scott Thompson as its CEO, won't stand for re-election at the next annual meeting, according to sources tapped by All Things Digital. Activist shareholder Third Point has been agitating for her to go and take Thompson with her since it discovered last week that both of them had faked their college degrees. It's currently demanding transcriptions of all of Yahoo's records concerning Thompson's appointment although what it really wants is to get its slate of candidates on Yah... (more)

Facebook’s Pied Piper IPO Supposedly Priced at $28-$35

The great Facebook IPO is supposed to happen on Friday May 18. The company's big investor-pitching pre-IPO roadshow is supposed to kick off this Monday and only see some appearances by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, according to the Wall Street Journal. CFO David Ebersman and COO Sheryl Sandberg will reportedly handle the bulk of the meetings. Initial East Coast meetings are supposed to be stuffed to the gills. But you can see the video now (http://facebook.retailroadshow.com/launch.html). Real pricing never happens until the night before an IPO. But it claimed in a regulatory... (more)