Facebook will set its share price range between the high-$20s and mid-$30s when it makes its initial public offering later this month, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. According to the paper’s unnamed sources, the company is seeking a valuation of between $85 billion and $95 billion. following a series of meetings with investors, and it could raise as much as $10 billion according to earlier reports. Facebook’s IPO is expected to be the largest such offering in history by an Internet company, besting Google’s $1.9 billion 2004 offering by a wide margin.
Facebook today announced that it has agreed to purchase popular photo-sharing service Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company will add Instragram's team to its own, though the service will continue to operate independently from Facebook. Instragram has been available to the Apple iPhone for some time, but only recently became available to Android smartphones. The deal is expected to close later this quarter pending customary closing conditions.
