Facebook Inc shares sank as much 4.3 percent on Friday to set a new low, a day
after early investors got the green light to sell for the first
time.
More than 270 million shares owned by the early investors became available
for trade on Thursday after a 3-month curb on sales ended. That’s more than
one-half the 421 million shares sold in its initial public offering on May
18.
Facebook hit a low of $19.01 Friday morning and were down almost exactly 50
percent from the $38 offering price at its May IPO. At midday, the stock had
eased to $19.15, off 3.5 percent.
Nearly 62 million shares of Facebook traded hands in the first two hours of
trading on Friday.
More than 1.4 billion additional shares held by early investors and Facebook
employees are set to become available for trading by year’s end, adding further
pressure on shares of the once high-flyer.
Facebook, the world’s No. 1 Internet social network founded by Mark
Zuckerberg in his Harvard University dorm room, became the only US company to
debut with a market value of more than $100bn.
But investors have grown disillusioned with Facebook’s inability to
articulate a plan to reverse slowing revenue growth.
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