LinkedIn IPO Doubles, Reid Hoffman Now A Billionaire
blogs.forbes.com
By Nicole Perlroth
Forbes
May. 19 2011 - 3:53 pm
Welcome to the Forbes 400, Reid.
The LinkedIn IPO, which priced last night at $45 a share, is now trading at $97 a share, bumping its valuation to an ethereal $9 billion. That makes LinkedIn one of the biggest first day IPO gainers since the bubble. And easily makes its founder Reid Hoffman a newly minted billionaire.
At the moment, LinkedIn’s stock is trading at $97 a share, making Hoffman’s entire stake worth $1.8 billion– plus he can expect a nice slice of his venture firm Greylock Partners’ stake, now worth $1.36 billion. As for LinkedIn’s other institutional investors, Sequoia Capital’s stake just shot past $1.6 billion, and Bessemer’s to $444 million (once those firms pay out their limited partners, their carry would be worth over $340 million, $400 million and $111 million, respectively).
Somewhere, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and Groupon Founder Andrew Mason are licking their chops. Groupon is expected to go public by year end; Facebook is expected to hold off until 2012. Sources tell me Groupon is eyeing a $25 billion valuation. Goldman Sachs‘ recent investment in Facebook valued the social network at $50 billion. If LinkedIn’s debut is any harbinger of what’s to come, Facebook and Groupon’s current valuations are on the way up.
A cautionary tale here is Chinese social networking giant RenRen. After pricing its shares at $14, it’s stock closed at $18, or 28.6% above the IPO price on its first day of trading. In the three weeks since it’s NYSE debut, its stock has since slid back to $14 a share. Then again LinkedIn is likely to see less volatility at the margins because U.S. investors are more familiar with the LinkedIn brand and management team than they are with RenRen’s, which operates exclusively in China. |
