Facebook Prices Massive IPO At $38 Per Share

New York : Facebook on Thursday announced a price of $38 per share for its record-setting initial public offering, which gives the leading social network a market value of $104 billion.

The shares will begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq, the company said in a statement. Facebook said some 421 million share of its common stock will be sold at a price to the public of $38 per share. Facebook is offering 180 million and holders of previous shares selling 241 million.

A so-called over-allotment of up to 63 million shares will be made available to the underwriters, a consortium including Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others.

That will mean one of the biggest IPOs for a US firm, raising between $16 billion and $18.4 billion.

Under the share plan, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg will hold 55.8% of the voting power, down slightly from an estimated 57.3%. The 28-year-old controls the firm through a dual class stock structure and certain shares that give him a "proxy" for voting.

The net proceeds to the company were estimated at $6.4 billion.