Is facebook worth 87 or 68 billion?

[Lup M]

We've been hearing from the media that fb's ipo was 104 billion and with losses recently, it seems 87 billion is the right number. But the likes of Google, Cnbc, and Bloomberg state the market cap at 68 billion.

So, what is the correct terminology?

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:FB
vs
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=fb&ql=1
So, i guess my real question is who has it right in terms of facebook worth. Outstanding worth * share price = market cap. Ultimately, there's a discrepancy somewhere. But who's got it all: a) the media that says $104 Bil IPO or B) CNBC/Bloomberg who says it started with a ~84 Bil IPO and there's "some" shares in dispute, or something...
Outstanding shares * share price = market cap, I mean.
Take 2:
I like your answer so far Bank but 1 big consideration: (assuming 2.14 billion shares)

a) at 102 billion, the share price is ~$48 (Media states this all the time as IPO)
b) at 81.3 billion, the share price is ~$38
c) at 68 billion, the share price is ~32

So, it begs the question: WHO got to sell FB at $48??

[Big]

increasing everyday

[Tom Z]

The correct terminology is market capitalization that's not the issue. All the sites have the same closing price so there seems to be a disagreement (or error) on the toatal number of shares outstanding.

[Bank]

The market cap is calculated differently from the $104 billion valuation, though the vast difference does demonstrate how poorly the IPO performed over its first few days.

Facebook initially sold 180 million shares to the public, which represents about 8.4% of the 2.14 billion shares outstanding. In addition, 157 million shares were initially sold by insiders, bringing the total shares sold to 337 million. Most sources quote $16 million as the amount attained by Facebook as part of the IPO. If 337 million shares (15.7% of 2.14 billion shares) is worth 16 billion, then all the shares would be worth around 102 billion, give or take.

The other amounts are true market cap figures. The $81.3 billion figure is a result of the total of 2.14 billion shares multiplied by $38. The $68 figure is the same 2.14 billion shares multiplied by the newer (and lower) price of around $31.77. Now the price is even lower, so the market cap is around $61 billion, but the company still earned $16 billion, so the initial figure still stands, but is outdated.



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[Dmitry N]

On Tuesday the price of the shares on NASDAQ stock market fell below $ 30 per share – the price dropped another 9.62% down to $ 28.84. The Facebook company value fell by 24%, to $ 61.66 billion since the Facebook IPO on May 18.