Facebook IPO talk

Gotcha! You read the title of this article and clicked on the link to read a prediction on the next big investment opportunity! Didn't you? Sorry, no predictions from me. Me no Nostradamous! However, I did read something very interesting on Barron's. I am going to copy paste that piece of text verbatim here. Also, before you read that, I encourage you to read the article itself on Barron's. Thats my lame attempt at being fair to Barron's since I am copying their text on my blog. Anyway, without further ado:

• Clearly, this is Mark Zuckerberg's world we're all living in. The Facebook founder said the company has nearly completed its much-discussed next round of financing, though neither he nor Ballmer would say whether rumors that Microsoft will sink $500 million into the company are true. Zuckerberg also said the company is years away from going public, though I would note that two is a plural number; how about an IPO in 2009? I say that for a reason. Zuckerberg said the company has 300 employees now, and likely will have 700 in a year. He also said that it is likely that all employees will continue to receive stock. If that is true, it would appear the company next year will trigger an SEC provision requiring regular financial filings for companies with more than 500 shareholders and more than $10 million in revenue. The rule is that you have to start filing within 120 days of the end of the fiscal year in which you trigger the provision; it is hard to imagine that the company simply will start filing 10-Qs without at least raising some capital. That is exactly the dynamic that led to the Google IPO, in fact. So by that logic, I predict a Facebook IPO filing in April 2009.