source: -- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, is to cash in $2.3bn (£1.4bn) of his stake in the social network as part of a new share offering.
The company announced it is commencing a public offering of 70m Class A shares, of which 41.4m will be sold by Mr Zuckerberg. The placing will capitalise on the strong recent preformance of Facebook stock. The shares have more than doubled in value in the last six months.
Mr Zuckerberg will use the majority of his proceeds to pay taxes in connection with his exercising an option to purchase 60m Class B shares, which carry more voting power. He owns nearly a third of Facebook, which is valued at $136bn.
Another major shareholder and board member, Marc Andreessen, who created the first widely-used web browser and is now a venture capitalist, will also sell 1.65m class A shares, about a third of his stake.
Mr Zuckerberg’s sale will reduce his voting power from 65.2pc to 62.8pc, so the 29-year-old will comfortably retain overall control of the world’s biggest social network, which he began with friends at Harvard University in 2004.
On Thursday’s opening price of $55.75 the new overall placing will raise a total of $3.9bn. It is being led by JP Morgan Chase and is expected to go on sale on Friday after the bell on Wall Street.
Facebook said it will use the proceeds working capital and other general corporate purposes.
The company said: “Our principal purpose for selling shares in this offering is to obtain additional capital. We intend to use the net proceeds to us from this offering for working capital and other general corporate purposes; however, we do not currently have any specific uses of the net proceeds planned.
“Additionally, we may use a portion of the proceeds to us for acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies, or other assets.”
Along with rival digital media giants including Google, Twitter and Yahoo!, Facebook is involved in a highly competitive battle to acquire the hottest start-ups. The company’s biggest deal to date was its $1bn acquisiiton of the smartphone camera app Instagram, which had virtually no revenues at the time but is now at the heart of Facebook’s effort to retain consumers’ attention and shift its advertising business to mobile devices.
Since he floated the company last May, Mr Zuckerberg has seen his fortune on paper tumble then rise above the initial offering price of $38. Facebook shares have rebounded on investors’ optimism over its rapidly-growing mobile advertising business, which has non-existent when it floated.
In spite of its recent performance, the battering Facebook shares took in the company’s first few months on the public market, which saw its shares slide below $18, is now the subject of a lawsuit by activist investors.
The company and its bankers face claims they misled investors over the threat to its revenues from the shift of its members from computers to smartphones and tablets. Facebook said this week that the case is without merit.
Nicknamed for its red hair, “Ginger” is the most famous of six naturally mummified bodies excavated in the late 19th century from shallow graves in the Egyptian desert. It went on display at the British Museum in 1901, becoming the first mummy to be exhibited in public, and has stayed there ever since. Ginger and the other bodies found with it are the oldest known mummies in existence, dating back to about 3400 B.C. Artificial mummification was not yet a common practice at the time of their deaths, but their bodies were naturally dried and preserved by the warm sand in which they were buried.
The most prominent female pharaoh, Hatshepsut reigned over Egypt for roughly two decades, undertaking ambitious building projects and establishing valuable new trade routes until her death in 1458 B.C. The archaeologist Howard Carter discovered her royal tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in 1902. When he located her sarcophagus some years later, however, it was found to be empty. Carter also unearthed a separate tomb, known as KV60, which contained two coffins: that of Hatshepsut’s wet nurse–identified as such by an inscription on its cover–and that of an unknown female. In 2006, a team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass set out to determine whether the anonymous woman in KV60 could be the missing queen herself. The vital piece of evidence was a molar tooth found in a wooden box bearing Hatshepsut’s name. When Hawass and his colleagues compared the tooth to a gap in the mummy’s upper jaw, it was a perfect fit, leading the researchers to conclude that the search for Hatshepsut was finally over.
Ancient Egypt’s “boy king” became pharaoh at the age of nine and ruled for approximately 10 years (c. 1333-1324 B.C.). Relatively obscure during his lifetime, Tutankhamen–or “King Tut”–became a household name in 1922, when the archaeologist Howard Carter found his remarkable tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Despite several apparent grave robberies, the tomb was crammed with a wealth of ancient treasures, including jewelry, gilded shrines and a solid gold funerary mask. The discovery prompted a worldwide fascination with Egyptology in general and Tutankhamen in particular. Carter’s partner and financier, Lord Carnarvon, died of an infected mosquito bite several months after the pair opened the tomb. His death inspired the myth of the mummy’s curse, according to which anyone who dared intrude upon King Tut’s grave would suffer his wrath.
Regarded by many historians as Egypt’s most powerful pharaoh, Ramesses II reigned for six decades (c. 1279-1213 B.C.), lived to be over 90 years old and is said to have fathered upwards of 100 children. His body was originally entombed in the Valley of the Kings, as was customary for a pharaoh, but ancient Egyptian priests later moved it to thwart rampant looters. In 1881, Ramesses II’s mummy was discovered in a secret royal cache at Deir el-Bahri, along with those of more than 50 other rulers and nobles. In 1974, archeologists noticed its deteriorating condition and flew it to Paris, where it was treated for a fungal infection. Before the journey, Ramesses II was issued an Egyptian passport, which listed his occupation as “King (deceased).”
Located in Egypt’s Western Desert, the Bahariya Oasis was a major agricultural center during ancient times and is now home to several archaeological sites, including a Greek temple dedicated to Alexander the Great. In 1996, an antiquities guard was riding his donkey on the temple’s grounds. Suddenly, the donkey’s leg stumbled into a hole, revealing an opening in the desert floor and the edge of a tomb. A team of archaeologists led by Dr. Zahi Hawass began excavations of the site, known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies. The first few expeditions have uncovered several hundred mummies that date back to Egypt’s Greco-Roman period, as well as a treasure trove of artifacts. The diversity of the mummies’ adornments suggests that the site served as the final resting place for every level of society, including wealthy merchants, members of the middle class and poorer inhabitants. Archeologists believe that as many as 10,000 additional mummies may be lying under the sand.
