Home Biggest Winners In Facebook’s IPO

Biggest Winners In Facebook’s IPO

When Hugh Hefner founded Playboy in 1953, he famously offered photographers, writers and artists the choice of cash or stock in the then-private company. While most chose cash, a few held onto shares that were worth millions by the time the company went public.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used a similar tactic, which means David Choe, a graffiti artist who was given stock for painting the walls of Facebook’s headquarter, worth an expected $200 million when the company’s shares start trading publicly. That and other details about who will be instantly wealthy were revealed in Facebook’s $5 billion IPO filing Wednesday.

The New York Times has a complete round up of who will gain the most from Facebook’s IPO. What follows is a condensed version of some of the highlights from that list.

  • Zuckerberg holds 553.8 million shares worth $28.4 billion, based on a company valuation of $100 billion, or $53 per share.
  • Peter Thiel, who invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004, has 44.7 million shares that could be worth $2 billion.
  • Bono’s venture capital fund Elevation Partners invested $120 million in Facebook in 2010.
  • Accel Partners, which owns 201.4 million shares, could see a thousand-fold return on its initial investment.
  • Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg could eventually hold as much as 40 million shares (she currently has 1.9 million shares, according to the filing)
  • DST Global, the investment firm led by the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, owns about 7% of Facebook.
  • Zuckerberg’s father, a dentist in New York, owns 2 million shares.
  • Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Zukerberg’s Harvard roommate, holds 133.8 million shares.
  • David A. Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer, holds seven million unvested shares. He has been working at the company for less than three years.
  • Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, former business partners of Zuckerberg, own 1.2 million shares as part of a legal settlement with Zuckerberg.
  • Eduardo Saverin, Facebook’s estranged co-founder, settled for a 5% stake in the company. A block of those shares have been sold in the secondary market.

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.

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