The company is counting the number of its own shareholders and is preparing for a record placement worth up to $100 billion

Facebook Inc. is preparing to conduct an initial public offering in May of this year. reported this on Wednesday, citing its own sources The Wall Street Journal .

According to the publication, the world's largest social network will soon accurately determine the number of its own shareholders. This week the company has already suspended trading in securities on the secondary market.

Facebook sent documents regarding its IPO to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) back in February. According to one of the sources, the company will make at least one amendment to the materials. Since this procedure requires approval from the regulator, it is not yet possible to talk about the exact timing of the placement, the WSJ interlocutor states. According to him, the IPO may either fall in one of the May weeks or be postponed again to a later period.

Price targets for the deal have not yet been announced. Analysts predict that the social network will be valued in the range of up to $100 billion.

The excitement around Facebook shares on the eve of the listing has been growing in recent weeks. Securities quotes soared to the capitalization of the entire company at a record $105 billion.

Due to the high interest in the IPO, the number of shareholders also increased. According to Bloomberg, Facebook's securities are currently owned by more than 1,000 investors, while the standard range for a non-public company that has announced its entry to the stock exchange does not exceed 100 shareholders.

Facebook plans to raise up to $10 billion following its IPO. The volume of the placement will be a new record for Internet companies. The organizers of the transaction are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, co-organizers are Barclays Capital, BoA - Merrill Lynch, Allen & Co.

In 2011, Facebook's net profit was $1 billion with revenue of $3.71 billion. Over the year, figures grew by 65% and 88%, respectively. The majority of the social network’s income comes from advertising (85%), the rest from games and other payments.

At the end of last year, Facebook had a user base of 845 million people who activated their account at least once a month. Compared to 2010, the number of such people increased by almost 40%. 483 million users access the social network daily (+48% over the year). They form more than 100 billion friendships and generate approximately 2.7 billion likes and comments every day. Facebook's average revenue per user is $5.1. For comparison, the same figure for Google is more than 5 times higher - $27.

In materials filed with the SEC, the company identified Russia as one of the most promising development markets.

The DST fund, created by Yuri Milner and Alisher Usmanov, owns 5.5% of Facebook's voting shares. Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru Group owns another 2.3%.

The company's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg directly owns 28.2% of the voting shares. The head of Facebook votes with a 56.9% stake: according to the terms of the shareholder agreements, the majority of large investors delegated their votes to him.

Facebook plans to IPO in May