LinkedIn, which owns a social network for finding and establishing business contacts, is valued ahead of its initial public offering at $3.3 billion, writes the Financial Times .

As part of the IPO, which will be held this month, the chairman of the board of directors of the company and one of its founders, Reid Hoffman, intends to reduce his stake to 20.1% from 21.2%.

The IPO will offer investors 7.84 million shares of common stock at prices ranging from $32 to $35 per share. Thus, during the sale of his stake, Hoffmann will be able to raise about $660 million. Investment bank Morgan Stanley & Co., as well as consultants from Merrill Lynch, Allen & Company and UBS Securities will manage the company's entry into the stock exchange.

In 2010, LinkedIn's profit was $15 million, revenue between 2008 and 2010. grew from $78 million to $243 million.

Creating a profile on LinkedIn is free. The resource’s business monetization scheme currently consists of placing paid advertisements from employers and potential employees (41% of revenue), advertising (32%), as well as selling premium accounts (27%).

In addition to Hoffman, the company's major shareholders are well-known venture investment funds - Sequoia Capital (18.9%), Greylock Partners (15.8%) and Bessemer Venture Partners (5.1%). LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Winer owns 4.1%, and CFO Stephen Sordello owns 1.1% of the shares.

According to the social network, the number of its users exceeds 90 million people, of which almost half live in the United States. The audience of the resource is growing at a rate of 1 user per second. LinkedIn, which has an office in Mountain View, has about a thousand employees.

Social network LinkedIn valued ahead of IPO at $3.3 billion