Are secondary markets to blame in Facebook IPO failure?
Summary: It's clear that "smart money" in secondary markets set the pricing of Facebook shares...
for Facebook [$FB] yet none have mentioned the role of secondary markets. In these private stock exchanges, Facebook was trading at around $42 a share in the weeks before the IPO.
Interestingly, Facebook set the opening price at $38 hoping for about a 10% pop on the first day, which would bring it up to $42 at close.
Since secondary markets are the playground of acredited investors, it's "smart money," and much of it institutional, it would be a fair assumption by Facebook that a $38 price was in the right ballpark.
However, this means that the trading in secondary markets essentially set the IPO price, leaving little wiggle room for Facebook.
Will secondary markets become more important in pricing future IPOs? Or will private companies choose to limit secondary market trading as much as they can, to avoid what happened with Facebook?
It's ironic that Google [$GOOG] carefully managed its IPO and snubbed much of Wall Street so as to not reward clients of investment banks; and to price fairly at the outset so that there would be as little pop as possible, yet it closed 18% up. Facebook went with the investment banks and took their advice and ended up with flop.
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Talkback
Who is that smart guy in the secondary market?
What failure?
Is pricing your IPO so that you -do- leave money on the table considered "success"? Why?
If the price was right then why is it $32.98 today?
Be safe
All trades that happen after the initial purchase are secondary market
Me I'm still in awe that people thought facebook had such
Pagan jim
The Real Market
Facebook IPO failure
It was only a failure for those who wanted the stock price to appreciate. Since Facebook stock was way overvalued insofar as the price-to-earnings ratio, the stock price had nowhere to go but down to a realistic, market-driven value.
The pre-IPO stock price was not reflective of market value.