Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Facebook IPO compared to tagline - "a more open, TRANSPARENT and connected world?"

Last Friday, 5/18 will I believe become known as "Facebook Friday" for several reasons. Today, The Daily Beast reports that certain underwriters may have lowered their revenue projections prior to the IPO AND may have informed some investors; but not all investors. I was jammed up last week and could not get the fact out of my mind that while on the road show that there would be private one-on-ones for certain investors. The general road shows surface questions, many questions over and over; there is no doubt that these questions (I wasn't there) were laser focused on revenues; whether new models compared to pre-IPO or ARPU (average revenue per user). The private one-on-ones cast extreme scrutiny on revenue numbers and assumptions - past present and future. NO DOUBT: When underwriters, no doubt listening, perhaps bristling and responding to potential investor's questions, probes and scrutiny - likely, as is often the case when more than two people look at the same set of numbers, raised some hard-to-dispose-of aka troubling issues causing them (apparently) to adjust projections DOWN; but they decided not to disseminate that to ALL investors. What are the future prospects? Some may ask with approximately 800 million users how many more would sign up in the future? And given the anti-climactic IPO fallout how many will remain active, revenue paying users? Facebook's tagline ironically is, I believe, to promote a more open, transparent and connected world. Really? There can't be a more prominent example, assuming the Daily Beast is accurate of informaion assymetry; unequal, untimely and incomplete information - perhaps knowing, willful and intentional and approaching recission of all those IPO allocations - si?