Facebook Finances Focus of Bloomberg TV Tonight
When companies file normal IPOs, they go into quiet periods. But there has been nothing quiet about the latest financing behind Facebook, which has evaded the public markets by rigging a way to privately sell $1.5 billion worth of shares through Goldman Sachs in a deal that values the company at $50 billion.
Tonight, an hour-long special on the topic will air at 9 pm ET on Bloomberg TV (and will be streamed live on Bloomberg’s Web site), featuring Yuri Milner, CEO of Digital Sky Technologies and one of the key investors who helped put together that deal. Unfortunately, while Bloomberg’s press release listed Milner as a “guest,” it neglected to mention that he won’t be an actual live guest (as initially reported here). Instead, clips from a Milner interview last year will be interspersed with current commentary from writers David Kirkpatrick, Paul Kedrosky and Bill Cohan, and marketing professor Scott Galloway.
Goldman has reportedly given its clients limited information and only until the end of the week to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest in Facebook. One Goldman customer told Reuters he felt like he was being expected to invest on “blind faith.”
BoomTown’s Kara Swisher yesterday described the Goldman-Facebook deal as “sneaky,” “elite” and “opaque.”
Here’s the promo for the Bloomberg program:
Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.