Friending Facebook

Emil Protalinski

Facebook’s finances leak for Q1 2011 to Q3 2011

By Emil Protalinski | December 15, 2011, 12:35pm PST

Summary: Nobody knows how Facebook’s finances look like but a new leak could give us a slightly better idea. The social networking giant made a combined $2.5 billion in Q1 2011, Q2 2011, and Q3 2011.

Facebook’s finances for the first three quarters of 2011 have supposedly leaked. After this timeframe, the social networking giant has $0 in debt and an operating cashflow of $1 billion, according to a source with knowledge of Facebook’s finances cited by Gawker.

Here are the leaked numbers, in all their glory:

Assets: $5.6 billion
Cash/cash equivalents: $3.5 billion
Debt: $0
Shareholder equity: $4.5 billion

Operating cashflow: $1 billion
Revenue: $2.5 billion
Operating income: $1.2 billion
Net income: $714 million

Ownership: Employees 30%, Mark Zuckerberg 24%, Digital Sky Technologies 10%, Accel Partners 8% (had 10% but sold 2%), Dustin Moskowitz 6%, Eduardo Saverin 5%, Sean Parker 4%, Goldman Sachs clients 3%, Microsoft 1.3%, Peter Thiel and/or Clarium Capital 3%, Greylock Partners 1.4%, Meritech Capital Partners 1.6%, Chris Hughes 1 %, Li Ka-shing .75%, Interpublic Group .50%,, Goldman Sachs .8%

Let’s assume that these numbers are accurate. We don’t know this, of course, but they’re arguably closer than the estimates that third-parties have made thus far. So, what do these numbers tell us?

On the one hand, we can see Facebook is doing very well for itself. Facebook’s income is blowing up, and the company will likely come close to earning a full $1 billion in profit this year. This is more than double what it reportedly made a year ago and quadruple what it is believed to have made two years ago, but it’s not very fair to compare these numbers to each other because this is leaked data against estimates. The important thing to remember is that Facebook is clearly making money, and it’s definitely a growing number.

On the other hand, if we do compare the numbers to previous estimates, they’re pretty low. Facebook is expected to generated $4.27 billion this year. This leak shows it has made $2.5 billion in revenue for Q1 2011, Q2 2011, and Q3 2011. This means Facebook still has to make $1.77 billion in revenue in just Q4 2011 if it’s going to meet the expectations. That’s more than double the average it made for the first three quarters this year: $833 million.

The point here is that leaked numbers and estimated numbers are not good data to go by. I’m sure everyone will still make a big deal about them, however, given that Facebook is not expected to be a private company for much longer.

Palo Alto is planning an initial public offering (IPO) for next year, meaning the company will go public in Q1 2012, Q2 2012, or even later, depending on which rumor and sources you want to believe. The social networking giant is projected to raise $10 billion, giving it a valuation of around $100 billion.

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