Social network founder cashes in Facebook shares to pay tax bill but still owns has a stake worth nearly $136bn,Mark Zuckerberg to sell $2.3bn of Facebook shares

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.