SecondMarket lays off 10% of staff due to Facebook IPO
"In a post-Facebook market world, we have decided to eliminate some positions that are no longer core to our company's long-term mission," a SecondMarket spokesperson said in a statement. "We reduced our headcount by approximately 10% today, but will continue to hire in select areas. We have no additional planned layoffs and look forward to ramping up our headcount in the future."
Facebook is the biggest company to go public in a long time and it will also likely be the biggest company to go public for a long time to come. The social networking giant's second-market trading represents a significant portion of SecondMarket revenue, or should I say "represented"?
Up until recently, employees and early stakeholders have been selling shares privately on SecondMarket and SharesPost. Most of these have been in the valuation range of $80 billion but ever since the company's IPO numbers became public, the valuations are much higher and auction failures stopped happening.
Last week, a rumor suggested Facebook was halting the trading of its shares on secondary markets by the beginning of April in advance of its $5 billion IPO. This was closely followed by the last unofficial auction of Facebook shares, which seemed to confirm the rumor. The last Facebook valuation before the company's IPO was $102.8 billion, or the highest yet.
See also:
- How much is Facebook worth?
- Facebook files for $5 billion IPO
- Facebook's IPO in pictures and Facebook's IPO by the numbers
- Facebook updates IPO filing to underline Zynga deal
- Facebook details Zuckerberg's $500,000 salary, 45% bonus
- Mark Zuckerberg bought Facebook shareholders' votes for $100
- Facebook secures $5 billion credit line, adds 25 underwriters